Sydney Sweeney’s Netflix Live-Action Movie Based On Popular Anime Is Officially In Production

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By

Matthew Rudoy

Published Apr 20, 2026, 7:06 PM EDT

Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant_'s Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars,_ The Boys_,_ _and Game of Thrones. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025. 

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Production is officially underway for Sydney Sweeney's live-action movie based on a popular anime.

This is only the latest of many projects for Sweeney, whose late 2025 movie The Housemaid became a box office smash hit and led to a sequel, The Housemaid's Secret, being greenlit. She is also starring in HBO's _Euphoria _season 3 and is attached to a film adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel Custom of the Country, the video game adaptation Split Fiction directed by Jon M. Chu, and the thriller I Pretended to Be a Missing Girl.

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Now, Netflix has announced that production has begun in Queensland, Australia for the live-action Gundam _movie starring Sweeney. She and Noah Centineo were previously confirmed to be cast as the leads, with an ensemble that includes Michael Mando, Gemma Chua-Tran, and Shioli Kutsuna. They are now joined by the new additions of Jason Isaacs, Nonso Anozie, Javon Walton, Jackson White, Ida Brooke, and Oleksandr Rudynskyi.

Based on the popular Gundam anime franchise that first began in 1979, the live-action movie will tell a new story about rival mech pilots on both sides of a war between Earth and its space colonies that has lasted for decades. Check out the official early description of the film below:

** As shifting allegiances and a growing threat set them on a collision course for one another, they’re pulled into a high-stakes race across the stars that could define the fate of humanity. With awe-inspiring battles, intimate human emotion, and an epic cinematic scale, this is Gundam like it’s been seen before.

The live-action Gundam movie is directed by Jim Mickle, who was the creator and co-showrunner of Netflix's Sweet Tooth, along with being an executive producer, director, and writer for the series. He is coming into _Gundam _with experience of translating an existing story into another medium, as Sweet Tooth was originally a series of comic books. Anozie played the character Tommy Jepperd in the Netflix show, which makes their live-action movie a reunion between the director and star.

This is the first time that _Gundam _has been brought into live action, which is expected to bring the franchise to an even wider audience, even after decades of releasing new content. Legendary Pictures is producing the film in partnership with Bandi Namco Filmworks, Mickle and his partner Linda Moran are producing through their company Nightshade, and Sweeney and Centineo are also aboard as producers.

Beyond Sweeney's many recent and upcoming projects and Anozie being in Sweet Tooth, the rest of the Gundam **cast has plenty of credits to their names as well. This includes Centineo in Netflix's The Recruit, Mando in Better Call Saul, Isaacs in the Harry Potter films, White in Tell Me Lies, Kutsuna in Deadpool & Wolverine, Walton in Under the Bridge, Rudynskyi in The Agency, Chua-Tran in Heartbreak High, and Brooke in Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three.