Sydney Sweeney’s Netflix ‘Gundam’ Movie Is A Sign Of Things To Come

Sydney Sweeney is currently in the midst of what has become a hugely controversial run in Euphoria season 3, where this week the series had her in a baby outfit, seducing men on OnlyFans, which is exactly as weird as it sounds. Now, she’s pivoting to her next role where she will…lead a blockbuster live-action Gundam movie for Netflix.

She’s been attached to this for some time, but now it’s officially her next project, with production starting now. The film will have her opposite Netflix favorite Noah Centineo of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, the recently canceled The Recruit, and the upcoming live-action Street Fighter movie.

The full cast list for the Gundam movie was just released by Netflix, and contains a lot of names and faces that seem like great gets for the project, from Michael Mando to Jason Isaacs to Gemma Chau-Tran to Shioli Kutsuna. Sweeney and Centineo certainly stick out.

While Sweeney is constantly making headlines for her red carpet looks and jeans ads, she has been trying to vastly diversify her film slate, now reaching the point where she’s starring in a high-profile blockbuster for the biggest streaming service on the planet when she hasn’t been anything close to an action star to date. It’s part of a double-hit dive into the concept, as she is also attached to an adaptation of the highly praised fantasy/sci-fi video game Split/Fiction, which, by its nature, will also be a huge action film.

Sweeney appears to be trying to speedrun every genre with varying degrees of success. Euphoria was where she broke out, and now she’s ending that run with what appears to be a genuinely insane storyline. She has high highs, like the enormous success of romcom Anyone But You with Glenn Powell, probably the male equivalent of her in the industry more than anyone else. Also, she starred in the erotic thriller The Housemaid, which was her biggest box office success, and she’s set to lead a sequel.

But there are also extremely low lows. Her awards-bait Christy, the story of a famed female boxer, had one of the worst box office openings in the history of the industry, which is not hyperbole. Somehow, she ended up in a background role in one of the worst superhero movies ever made, Madame Web. Though now every day she is rumored for some sort of MCU role or another, from Black Cat to now Emma Frost. Again, that would have her going even deeper into the action genre.

Sweeney also represents a growing trend in Hollywood where there is an increasingly small slate of actors able to single-handedly greenlight projects. I don’t think an expensive Gundam movie would have been made at all if Sweeney were not attached, as out of place as she may seem. Again, it’s not just her. Glen Powell is currently circling a Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 video game adaptation where no one seems to have any idea which role he could possibly play. But Powell would get that movie greenlit. Game actors Charlie Cox and Jennifer English, unfortunately, would not.

A live-action Gundam adaptation would be difficult to pull off with any cast, so we’ll see what happens here. I am actually more worried about Centineo here than Sweeney as a lead, but maybe this is all a better fit than it seems.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.