Mobile Suit Gundam has been releasing quite a few headlines in recent years thanks to its ability to create new universes and/or timelines within the anime realm. Earlier this year, for example, the Gundam franchise announced the birth of a new universe that will be explored in the upcoming anime series, Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO. While the anime world is handled, the Gundam franchise is looking to expand its reach with the upcoming live-action film. In a surprising interview, one of the stars of the film has confirmed when and where the movie will take place.
Actor Noah Centineo recently spoke with the podcast Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz about the live-action anime adaptation. While Centineo’s next film is Street Fighter, where he’ll be taking on the role of Ken Masters, it seems as though he’ll remain on the nerdier side of Hollywood for the upcoming Gundam film. During the interview, Noah reveals that the film will be canon to the original anime universe, taking place within the Universal Century Arc that focused on the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. “It’s a big action romance space movie. It lives in the Universal Century canon of Gundam, for those who know. I don’t know how much I can tell you about what characters are in it, but I will say you can compare it to a non-Shakespearean Romeo And Juliet in Space.”
For those who might need a refresher on the first Gundam story that kicked off the wildly successful anime franchise, the Universal Century Arc is routinely thought of as the greatest story within the series. The first storyline introduced us to Amuro of Earth and Char of Zeon, with the former stumbling upon a Gundam to fight in an intergalactic war between the two superpowers. Ending in 1980, the first conflict of the series would make countless returns thanks to the franchise revisiting the battle between Zeon and Earth in unique ways.
Specifically, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway is a film series that follows protagonist Noa Hathaway, who is billed as the successor to both Char and Amuro alike. The second of the trilogy, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe, was released earlier this year, with a third movie planned for the future. On top of Hathaway’s journey, the franchise also explored a new timeline that saw Zeon win the original conflict in Gundam GQuuuuuuX. Thanks to this fact, anime fans were introduced to a far different universe than they might have expected, thanks to Char being the one to discover the original Gundam mech versus Amuro. Whether we’ll get live-action iterations of Amuro and Char in the film is a different story, though this confirmation seems to shoot down the idea that Sydney Sweeney and Noah Centineo will be taking on the roles.
