voltronvault.com / Movie / The 2027 film
2027 · Prime Video
Amazon MGM shot it on the Gold Coast in 2024 and it arrives in 2027. Twenty-two years and seven collapsed attempts got it here, most of them killed by the question of who owned the property rather than by anything on the page. Then, in May 2026, Amazon decided nobody would see it in a cinema.
Above: Atlas Entertainment’s 2010 pitch art for a Voltron film that was shelved before anyone financed it. Nothing from the 2027 production has ever been shown, so there is no image of it to put here.
Where things stand
It wrapped on 24 May 2025 and then it sat. In May 2026 Amazon indicated at its Upfront that it would go straight to Prime Video, which means the first Voltron film ever completed will also be the first one nobody can buy a ticket for. That is a strange way for a two-decade fight to end.
Key facts
- Director
- Rawson Marshall Thurber
- Screenplay
- Ellen Shanman and Rawson Marshall Thurber, from Thurber’s story
- Producers
- Todd Lieberman, David Hoberman, Bob Koplar, Rawson Marshall Thurber
- Studio
- Amazon MGM Studios, with World Events Productions
- Shot
- December 2024 to 24 May 2025, Village Roadshow Studios, Gold Coast
- Working title
- Space Mouse
- Release
- 2027, Prime Video. Year only, no month, no day
- Runtime
- Not announced
- Composer
- None attached publicly
- Budget
- Never reported
What has been shown
- No trailer and no teaser.
- No cast member in costume.
- No image of a lion, or of Voltron.
- No set photography was ever issued.
- No runtime, no certificate, no date beyond the year.
Several videos calling themselves the Voltron trailer are circulating, one listing Dwayne Johnson in the cast. They are fan-made and we are not linking them.
Who is in it, and how sure anyone is
Hasbro’s own February 2026 announcement named five actors and not one character, which tells you how much of the casting below came from the studio. Almost none of it did. Tap a card for what is actually known.
One pilot, then. Thurber has said the film introduces a new generation of pilots, so the five may not be Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk and Allura at all. A test-screening account from October 2025 claims something stranger again, and we are not printing it, because it is one person relaying a screening they did not attend and it contradicts the casting above.
Twenty-two years of nearly
Seven attempts died before this one. Reading them in order, the striking thing is how rarely the problem was creative: two collapsed outright on rights, one on a bankruptcy, one on an expired option, and one simply stopped being mentioned.
- 2004 to 2005
Animus Films and NHO Entertainment
Jim Young, Ford Oelman and Mark Costa develop it independently, with Young’s Animus Films paying for the script.
Ends: Superseded. They sued World Events over it in 2009.
- 2005
Mark Gordon, with World Events
Announced that July. Pharrell Williams reported as composer, which was never confirmed and never mentioned in trade coverage again.
Ends: No studio would take it until Transformers opened in 2007.
- 2007 to 2008
New Regency, at Fox
Justin Marks writes a post-apocalyptic version set in New York City and Mexico, five years after an alien attack, with five survivors finding the lions. One script reader called it the best possible version of Voltron. Another complained Voltron does not appear until page 102 of 110.
Ends: Toei objected to the rights. New Regency walked in August 2008 rather than fight it.
- 2008 to 2009
Relativity Media, first pass
Picks up the turnaround on a moderate budget, in the manner of 300. Max Makowski enters talks to direct.
Ends: The rights question was still open. The package moved to Atlas.
- 2009 to 2010
Atlas Entertainment
Chuck Roven and Richard Suckle shop it with a new script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, and the two pitch paintings below, which leaked through JoBlo in September 2010.
Atlas Entertainment pitch art, leaked September 2010. Voltron and a lion over Manhattan, with the Statue of Liberty at left. The artist has never been identified. Ends: Publicly shelved in June 2010: the writers, said the producers, had yet to lock down the right tone.
- 2011 to 2015
Relativity Media, second pass
Options it in July 2011, timed to Voltron’s first Comic-Con panel. Robert Koplar tells Vulture it should be in cinemas by 2013, or 2014 at the latest.
Ends: The option expired. Relativity filed for Chapter 11 in July 2015.
- 2016
DreamWorks Animation, then Universal
Universal inherits a live-action Voltron in the DreamWorks purchase, with David Hayter writing.
Ends: Nothing was ever announced about why it stopped. No director was attached and no greenlight was given.
- 2022 to 2027
Amazon MGM Studios
Thurber’s version starts a bidding war in March 2022. Amazon takes it in April. Cameras roll on the Gold Coast in December 2024.
Ends: Made. It is the one that got shot.
The rights fight nobody writes up
Voltron: Defender of the Universe is an English re-edit of two unrelated Toei series, Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, licensed and recombined in St. Louis. That is a fine arrangement for a cartoon and a difficult one for a film, because it leaves two companies on two continents with defensible views about what was actually sold.
The first fight came in 1998, when World Events produced Voltron: The Third Dimension in CGI without Toei. It settled in 2000 with new agreements and an assignment. What that settlement actually divided is the single most confidently repeated unsourced claim in Voltron’s history: the version you will read says World Events walked away with the animated properties outright, but the reporting closest to the pleadings declines to describe the division at all. We are not going to pretend to know.
What is documented is what happened next. On 9 August 2007, the same day Variety broke the New Regency deal, World Events sold live-action rights without consulting Toei. Toei wrote back to say that in its view the settlement had not given World Events "an exclusive right for live-action movie for Voltron", on the reasoning that animation and live action are completely different products. New Regency then ran its own rights check and turned up a third party: Kazuo Nakamura, the Toei artist who led character design on GoLion, who World Events’ own complaint conceded "may possess rights that encumber the Golion and/or Voltron properties."
World Events sued for a declaration of who owned what. Twice.
| Court | Docket | Filed | Terminated |
|---|---|---|---|
| E.D. Missouri | 4:08-cv-00163 | 1 February 2008 | 28 September 2010 |
| C.D. California | 2:08-cv-06607 | 7 October 2008 | 29 April 2009 |
New Regency did not wait for the answer. It abandoned the film in August 2008, unable to close with the rights holders, and World Events later pleaded that the dispute had cost it at least one development deal that would have produced an actual movie. The terms of the eventual settlement are not public. A second suit, brought in September 2009 by the producers who said they had held an exclusive Voltron deal since 2004, fouled the Atlas era on the way past. The two-series origin that caused all of this is on the Fleet of Doom page.
Gallery
Everything Voltron on film has shown anyone about this production, which is one logo. The rest is the art from the versions that died, and the painting the property has been sold on since 1984.
Questions
When is the Voltron movie out?
Some time in 2027, on Prime Video. Amazon has given a year and nothing more precise, and the film has never held a dated release slot, so nothing has technically been delayed.
Why is it not going to cinemas?
Amazon indicated at its 2026 Upfront, reported on 11 and 12 May, that the film goes straight to Prime Video. No reason was given by anyone at the studio. Every explanation you have read is an outlet’s analysis, not a statement.
Who plays the lion pilots?
Publicly, only one. Daniel Quinn-Toye is reported as Keith. Lance, Pidge, Hunk, Allura and Shiro have not been assigned to any actor in public, and Thurber has said the film introduces a new generation of pilots, so the five may not be the 1984 five at all.
Is there a trailer?
No. The only official material from this film is its logo, which producer Bob Koplar posted in December 2024 when cameras started rolling. Anything on YouTube calling itself a Voltron trailer is fan-made, including the one that lists Dwayne Johnson in the cast.
Why is the working title Space Mouse?
Nobody involved has said. The obvious in-franchise referent is the Space Mice of Altea and the 1984 episode The Mighty Space Mouse, and you can see the mice yourself in our frame-by-frame of Fleet of Doom. That is a fan inference and we are labelling it as one.
What did the Voltron movie cost?
Nobody has reported a budget. The hundred million dollar figure that circulates is Screen Queensland’s estimate of what the shoot put into the Queensland economy, which is a different thing.
Why did it take so long to make a Voltron film?
Mostly because of who owned what. Voltron is an English re-edit of two unrelated Toei series, and when Hollywood came calling, the question of whether World Events could sell live-action rights at all went to federal court twice.
Will there be a sequel?
Sterling K. Brown said at Comic-Con in July 2025 that he would come back for one. That is an actor being enthusiastic, not a studio announcement.
How this page was built
Assembled by the voltronvault.com desk from trade reporting (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, TheWrap), Hasbro’s February 2026 announcement, Screen Queensland’s production notice, contemporaneous coverage at Anime News Network and ComicMix, and the federal dockets through CourtListener’s RECAP archive. Where two sources disagree, both are printed. Where a claim is widely repeated and we could not find anything underneath it, the page says so instead of repeating it.
Image credits
- Henry Cavill portrait
- Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Sterling K. Brown portrait
- Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rita Ora portrait
- Firdaus Latif, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Alba Baptista portrait
- CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Samson Kayo portrait
- JaceMerlyn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- John Harlan Kim portrait
- Luigi Novi, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- 2010 concept art
- Atlas Entertainment and World Events Productions. Artist unidentified. Reproduced editorially
- Wordmark and lens photo
- Amazon MGM Studios and Bob Koplar. Reproduced editorially
- Cast announcement image
- Screen Queensland and Amazon MGM Studios. Reproduced editorially
- 1984 key art
- World Events Productions. Reproduced editorially
voltronvault.com is an independent fan archive and is not affiliated with World Events Productions, Amazon MGM Studios, Toei Animation or DreamWorks Animation. Corrections are welcome through the contact page, and the news desk page explains how this desk works.