Neflix has just announced this Thursday that they have cast Georgian-American actress Elena Satine to play the role of Spike Spiegel’s lover Julia in its upcoming live-action adaptation of the 1998 sci-fi anime classic Cowboy Bebop.
Satine made her TV debut in one episode of 2008 TV series Cold Case. She has since made TV appearances in different shows, finally landing a recurring role in the 2017 Fox TV series The Gifted as Sonya Simonson/Dreamer. Her latest role is in the CBS period drama web series Strange Angel, where she played Maggie Donovan.
Heading the cast is John Cho (Harold and Kumar, Star Trek)who will be playing lead character Spike Spiegel, an exiled former hitman haunted by guilt over the death of the woman he loved. Mustafa Shakir (Marvel’s Luke Cage)will play Spike’s partner Jet Black, Daniella Pineda (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom)will play amnesiac con-artist Faye Valentine, and Alex Hassell (The Miniaturist)will play Vicious, Spike’s best-friend-turned-mortal-enemy.
Alex Garcia Lopez, who directed Daredevil and The Witcher, is on board to direct the first two episodes of Bebop. Described by Netflix as a “Live-action TV drama”, Cowboy Bebop is slated to run for 10 episodes. No release date has been announced yet.
The live-action adaptation is a co-production between Netflix and Tomorrow Studios, which is a partnership between producer Marty Adelstein (Teen Wolf, Prison Break) and British production company ITV Studios. The original anime’s director, Shinichi Watanabe, will be serving as consultant for the Netflix adaptation. Key staff from Sunrise, the anime studio that produced the original series, will also be serving as the show’s executive producers along with other Western producers.
Cowboy Bebop follows the story of Spike Spiegel and his crew aboard the spaceship Bebop. The series is mostly about their crew’s adventures in hunting down space criminals and turning them in for a reward. The story’s main conflict, however, centers on the rivalry between Spike and his former best friend Vicious, with the former seeking to avenge the death of the woman he loved.
Source: Anime News Network