Hollywood Film Adaptation of 'Boku no Hero Academia' Announced

Legendary Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, announced a live-action film based on Kouhei Horikoshi's superhero manga Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) on Wednesday. Alex Garcia (Godzilla) and Jay Ashenfelter (Pacific Rim: Uprising associate producer) will supervise the film for Legendary, with the manga's editor Ryousuke Yoritomi on behalf of Shueisha. Toho will handle the film's distribution in Japan.

Boku no Hero Academia began its serialization in Weekly Shounen Jump in July 2014. Shueisha published the 20th volume on September 4, with the 21st volumes planned for a December 4 release. The manga currently has a cumulative 17 million copies of its compiled volumes in circulation.

Studio Bones produced the 13-episode first anime season in Spring 2016, followed by two 25-episode seasons in Spring 2017 and Spring 2018, respectively. The 13th and 14th volumes included two OVA episodes in April and June last year. An anime film featuring an original story premiered in Japan on August 3, grossing over 1.5 billion yen. A fourth season is currently in production.

VIZ Media licensed the manga in English under its Shounen Jump imprint in February 2015 and has since been publishing the series in their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The 15th volume went on sale on October 2. Funimation licensed the anime series in North America and shipped the first season on a Blu-ray and DVD volume last April. The second season was released in two volumes on April 3 and June 5 earlier this year.

Legendary's lineup of upcoming films include Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, a joint production with Warner Bros. and Toho based on the titular video game and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a sequel to the 2014 American reboot of the franchise; both of which are scheduled to premiere next year on May 10 and 31, respectively. Godzilla vs. Kong, a crossover sequel, is in pre-production for a May 2020 release. The company is also co-producing a live-action Gundam film with animation studio Sunrise.

Source: Deadline