Henry Cavill has found his next big franchise as he has signed on to join the live-action Voltron movie being developed by Amazon MGM. Cavill is best known for playing Superman in the DCEU’s Man of Steel, Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, and, finally, a cameo at the end of Black Adam that did not pan out. He also previously played Geralt of Rivia on Netflix’s The Witcher for three seasons, until he was replaced by Liam Hemsworth. 2024 has been a rough year for Cavill as his two feature films, Argylle and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, bombed at the box office.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Henry Cavill will star in Voltron. Cavill joins newcomer Daniel Quinn-Toye, Tom Holland’s understudy in the West End production of Romeo & Juliet. The film will be directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously directed Netflix’s Red Notice. It is currently unknown who Cavill is playing in Voltron, as details of the film are being kept under wraps.
Voltron: Defender of the Universe was a popular anime in the 1980s that was dubbed in English by combining two separate Japanese anime, Beast King GoLion and Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV. The series follows a group of pilots who ride five giant lion robots that can combine to form one giant mech known as Voltron. Netflix and DreamWorks Animation successfully revived Voltron: Legendary Defender, which ran for eight seasons from 2016 to 2018.
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Voltron’s Long Road to the Big Screen
Plans for a live-action Voltron movie go all the way back to 2005 and picked up steam in 2007 following the release of Michael Bay’s Transformers. Many people believed that Cloverfield was a secret Voltron movie, after seeing the trailer and mishearing the line, “I saw it, it’s alive. It’s huge,” as “I saw it, it’s a lion. It’s huge.” The rights have bounced around between various studios, with Voltron at one point being developed by Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation in 2016 following the success of the Netflix series. In 2022, Amazon MGM acquired the rights to Voltron and put a live-action feature film into development with Rawson Marshall Thurber at the helm.
Voltron is one of two high-profile live-action films based on popular animated series from the 1980s that Amazon MGM has been developing. The second is Masters of the Universe, which will be directed by Travis Knight and stars Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, and Alison Brie. Both films are scheduled for theatrical release, yet Voltron has no release date. With Cavill joining the cast, expect more casting news and the movie to pick up steam.