Henry Cavill to Star in ‘Voltron’ Movie

(Left) Henry Cavill in ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’. Photo: Daniel Smith (Right) ‘Voltron: Legendary Defender.’ Photo: Netflix.

Preview:

Henry Cavill will star in the ‘Voltron’ live-action movie.
‘Red Notice’s Rawson Marshall Thurber is directing.
It’ll adapt the iconic anime series.

We all know Henry Cavill loves working in genre films and shows. He’s played Superman on the big screen, and on TV, he was the star of ‘The Witcher’ for three seasons.

And in his off-screen life, he’s into plenty of geek-tastic pursuits, including video games and table-top gaming.

It’s not all that surprising, then, to learn that he’s landed a major role in ‘Red Notice’ and ‘Central Intelligence’ director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s live-action take on anime series ‘Voltron’ for Amazon MGM Studios.

Details on Cavill’s role in the movie are unknown for now, but we can imagine him either playing a heroic mentor, or, to change things up, a scheming villain.

What’s the story of ‘Voltron’?

‘Voltron: Legendary Defender.’ Photo: Netflix.

‘Voltron’ has its roots in the Japanese sci-fi series ‘Beast King GoLion’ and ‘Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV’.

American production World Events bought the rights for the States, then edited and dubbed the series as a syndicated show, titling it ‘Voltron: Defender of the Universe’, which ran in the mid-1980s.

The premise focused on five young pilots in a battalion named the Robot Lions, which are vehicles that merge to form a mega robot known as Voltron and take on a variety of enemies.

The show in animated form has already been rebooted twice, once for the NickToon channel in 2011, while the current version is on Netflix.

TV-Y78 SeasonsJune 10th, 2016

It’s a compelling concept (one that has been referenced and parodied endlessly since its heyday) and a-live action version has been in development at different terms since the early 2000s.

The plot for the new movie, which Thurber wrote with Ellen Shanman, is a mystery for now, but we can expect a fair amount of giant robot combat. The director has been developing this one since at least 2022.

Who else will appear in ‘Voltron’?

‘Voltron: Legendary Defender.’ Photo: Netflix.

Cavill is not the first person cast in the new movie. He joins Daniel Quinn-Toye, a relative newcomer whose previous screen credit was a tiny role in a BBC sitcom called ‘Badults’ that ran in 2013 and 2014.

But Quinn-Toye has one other job that caught the eye of Thurber and Amazon MGM studios: the 21-year old actor, who attended London’s Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts as well as the Dance School of Scotland, was the understudy to Tom Holland in the ‘Spider-Man’ actor’s big return to the theater world this past spring in the West End production of ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ He also had small roles in the play itself.

When will ‘Voltron’ be on screens?

Amazon MGM Studios has yet to confirm a release date for the movie, though Thurber will kick off production this fall in Australia, so it could conceivably be with us next year. Given the likely post-production/effects workload, however, 2026 would be a more sensible target.