Plans for an Aoki Uru film date back to 1992. Hideaki Anno was attached to direct with Hiroyuki Yamaga writing and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto designing characters. The project fell through a year later due to Gainax's finical troubles but revival attempts have occurred in 1998 and 2001. Toshio Okada who was head of Gainax until 1992 has said he never wanted to make the film, feeling it was too similar to Walter Hill's Streets of Fire (1984).
In 2018 production shifted from Gainax to newly established Gaina (previously known as Fukushima Gainax).