Jason Reitman's live-action Astro Boy movie is reportedly dead at Sony
Per reporter Jeff Sneider, the live-action Astro Boy film that Ghostbusters directors Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan were developing is no longer moving forward at Sony. It was reportedly a passion project, making a revival elsewhere unlikely.
A live-action Astro Boy movie from Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan is reportedly no longer happening at Sony, less than six months after it was first reported.
According to reporter Jeff Sneider, the adaptation “will not be moving forward at Sony.” The project, first reported in February 2026, had the Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Frozen Empire filmmakers developing a four-quadrant family film based on Osamu Tezuka’s legendary manga, with Sony seeking writers.
As with any single-source report, it’s worth a note of caution, but here’s what it reportedly means.
What was planned, and what’s reportedly happening
The film had a specific shape before it stalled.
Sony envisioned Astro Boy as an all-ages, “four-quadrant” family movie, reportedly a robotic spin on Pinocchio, fitting the source material: Tezuka’s 1952 manga follows an android built in the image of a scientist’s dead son. Reitman wasn’t formally attached to direct but might have, depending on how the script came together.
Now, per Sneider, it’s off at Sony. He notes another studio could theoretically revive it, but calls that unlikely, since the adaptation was a personal passion project for Reitman specifically, and passion projects rarely survive the move to a new home.
Sony isn’t abandoning anime, though
One thing worth clarifying, because it’d be easy to read this wrong.
This isn’t Sony backing away from live-action anime and manga adaptations. The studio is still developing a live-action One-Punch Man movie with Fast & Furious director Justin Lin, and Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon writing. So Astro Boy falling through is a project-specific outcome, not a strategy shift.
If anything, the cautionary tale hanging over it is the 2009 Astro Boy animated film, which, despite a cast including Nicolas Cage, Charlize Theron, and Donald Sutherland, flopped at the box office. Whether that history factored into Sony’s decision is unconfirmed, but it’s not hard to imagine it weighing on a new attempt.
The bigger challenge
Even setting Sony aside, live-action anime adaptations are a genuinely hard problem.
Hollywood’s track record here is rough. Ghost in the Shell and Alita: Battle Angel both struggled to turn beloved source material into live-action hits, and the gap between what animation can do and what a live-action budget can convincingly render is where many of these projects break.
A four-quadrant Astro Boy would have had to thread the needle of pleasing longtime fans, newcomers, kids, and adults at once, exactly the kind of everyone-and-no-one problem that sinks adaptations.
For now, the Mighty Atom stays grounded, at least at Sony. Given how few live-action anime movies actually land, that may not be the loss it first looks like.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
The InSneider (Jeff Sneider) (August 2026), cited as the originating report for the project not moving forward at Sony, the unlikely-revival-elsewhere assessment, and the passion-project framing
Dark Horizons (August 2026), verified for the report details, the Reitman/Kenan reunion, the writers-being-sought status, and the Tezuka source-material background
ComicBook.com (August 2026), verified for Sony still developing a live-action One-Punch Man with Justin Lin and Dan Harmon, and the 2009 Astro Boy film’s underperformance despite its cast
CBR and ComingSoon (February 2026), verified for the original report, the four-quadrant family-film framing, the Pinocchio comparison, and the Alita and Ghost in the Shell adaptation-difficulty context