Alexandre Aja is an interesting director that I haven’t settled an opinion on yet. I didn’t love High Tension, but it undeniably showed he was a person to watch in the horror field, then The Hills Have Eyes remake I thought proved he had the goods, then Mirrors happened… and I didn’t know what to think anymore. I’m hoping to resolve my feelings on Friday with Piranha 3D, which I am so excited to see I’m actually a little embarrassed. I’m hoping it is gonzo brilliance. If so that means I can start getting excited for Aja’s next film…

Cobra – The Space Pirate.

Deadline is reporting that Aja has acquired the film rights from Buichi Terasawa, creator of the Japanese manga, which was turned into an animated series that was apparently quite popular in Europe when Aja was a lad. The gist:

In a future where merchant spaceships and ruthless brigands sail across space, Cobra is a notorious rogue pirate whose refusal to align with the United Galaxies Federation or the Pirates Guild puts him on the business end of a huge bounty. As he tries to keep his identity secret and avoid capture, Cobra teams up with a sexy bounty hunter named Jane, who is out to locate her sisters and decode a treasure map tattooed on their backs. Their goal: to liberate a lost treasure on Mars.

Aja sees the project as his chance to break away from horror and do a big tent-pole film. He says, “For many people there is Star Wars and nothing else, but for me and my writing partner Gregory, there is Star Wars and Cobra. I am so surprised it never crossed the ocean and made the same impact in the U.S., because it is so big everywhere else. There are 60 books, a lot of TV animation and so many adventures, pirates and bad guys that it is perfect to be reinvented into a really cool space opera adventure franchise for a new generation.

I’d love to hear what our European readers have to say about Cobra. Is it as awesome as Aja says it is? How does it really compare with Star Wars?