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'Fringe' Producers Writing Secret Project at Bad Robot Titled 'Zanbato'

by Alex Billington
April 19, 2011
Source: Deadline

Here's something interesting to chew on for a while. Deadline reports that two female producers/writers from the TV world, Monica Breen and Alison Schapker, currently working on the series "Fringe" (also of "Alias" and "Lost"), have been hired to do a rewrite for a top secret feature film project at Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams' production company. She only mentions that the project is called Zanbato and has a script that "involves Japanese history and robotics", including "swashbuckling robots with swords," is how someone even described it. Whoa! That sounds pretty cool. Does this have anything to do with Boilerplate?

Breen and Schapker first started as co-producers on "Charmed" in 2000, then worked on "Alias" as well as ABC's "Brothers and Sisters". Deadline also adds that Warner Bros TV has re-signed a "7-figure deal" with the two to keep them producing "Fringe" for another season. They also have another script called Pulp, a "heightened reality crime drama", that will probably become a graphic novel at DC Comics. And now this Zanbato, plus they'll "continue to develop original material with J.J. and Bad Robot." Sounds like these two are some of the secret weapons behind the brilliant ideas on "Fringe" and Abrams is giving them a chance to really shine creatively in other facets beyond TV, so let's see what they've got. This certainly intrigues me.

As for the Boilerplate connection, who knows, maybe it's all just a cover up so J.J. can keep us guessing. Boilerplate was the "world's first robot, who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia." I could see that turned into "swashbuckling robots with swords" and even setting it in Japan with robots and their history, it could be pretty cool to see that universe. Who knows, I'm sure we'll find out about it in time, as Bad Robot always has many mysterious things going on.

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