Russo Brothers Producing 'Grimjack' And 'Battle Of The Planets' (Aka 'Gatchaman') Movies, May Direct 'Planets' [Comic-Con 2019]

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony & Joe Russo addressed adoring fans from the Hall H stage at San Diego Comic-Con this morning, and while we'll have a full breakdown of that panel soon, we wanted to share two pieces of information they revealed that we hadn't heard before. In addition to their other upcoming filmmaking efforts, the Russo brothers will be producing a Grimjack movie and a Battle of the Planets movie – and they may even direct Planets themselves.

Read on to learn more about both of these properties.

For those who have never heard of Grimjack, the film will be based on the graphic novel by John Ostrander and Tim Truman that followed an ex-military war veteran named John Gaunt, a former child gladiator who works as a sword-for-hire in a world full of magic and aliens. The character has a complicated history – it involves being left for dead by his brothers, learning how to wield magic, and serving a stint in the Trans-Dimensional Police – and writer J. Michael Straczynski tried unsuccessfully to get a movie version off the ground back in the mid-1990s. But it seems like the Russos, with all the Hollywood power they've attained recently, may actually be able to get it up and running.

Collider has the synopsis:

Grimjack is the story of mercenary and his crew who are forced to dig into their own pasts when Grimjack's estranged teenage daughter comes to him looking for help.  This will take them through the insane streets of Cynosure, a mysterious city where all parallel universes intersect.  There, this unlikely team fights to save not just themselves, but all the planes of existence as we know it.

"This is a favorite comic book of mine," Joe Russo said. "I have issue 1 in a box in my childhood home. It's an incredible story and we're excited about bringing that one to life."

I remember reading about a possible Battle of the Planets movie (later known as Science Team Ninja Gatchaman, or just Gatchaman, to American audiences) way back in 2008, when some initial concept art made its way online. But now the Russos have acquired the rights to the anime property, which told the story of "five young orphans trained from a young age to form an elite, intergalactic team known as G-Force, swearing to protect Earth and its allies from otherworldly invading forces."

"This was perhaps our favorite cartoon growing up," Joe explained to the Comic-Con crowd. "We love this show, I used to race home from school every day just to watch this at 4 o'clock. Maybe you can tell, we're slowly hunting down all our favorite IP from childhood and we're going to convert that into projects...We're producing Grim Jack...We'll see [on Battle of the Planets]. If we were to do it, it would be live-action. If we were to direct it, we would direct it as a live-action film. Very early days."

We'll have more from the rest of the panel soon, so stay tuned.