Toei Animation — Japan’s largest animation production company and responsible for the likes of Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon — is set to be involved with a major live-action version of Gaiking, the mid-1970s japanese animated series that detailed the story of a super-robot and its human pilot, created to help defend the earth from an alien invasion. The concept became part of the Shogun Warriors line in America during the late 1970s and also 'Force Five' in the 1980s.
Toei, together with All Nippon Entertainment and Valhalla Entertainment (the company behind the mega-success of The Walking Dead) the partnership will develop and produce a film that they hope will kickstart a wider 'mecha'-based franchise that can have global appeal - especially pulling in fans of existing films and franchises such as Transformers and Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pacific Rim.
No firm deals on writers or stars are known at this point, but the mecha-concpet does seem to be having something of a renaissance at the moment...