Battle Royale remake

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=14899

Quote:

New Line Cinema has bought the remake rights to the controversial Japanese sci-fi film Battle Royale and set up the project with Neal Moritz and Roy Lee, reports Variety.

The original film, produced by Toie and released in 2000 amid concerns about its violence, is set in an apocalyptic future in which schools are overrun by uncontrolled violence; the government responds by organizing an annual Battle Royale, in which a school class is picked at random and students are pitted against each other on an abandoned island in a game of survival.

Toie also produced a sequel in 2003, Battle Royale II -- Requiem, in which a new class of teen students are forced to battle a rebel group let by a survivor of a previous Battle Royale.

Well. I never expected to see this headline.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The New York Times' website had an article on the remake and the reaction following Variety's announcement of the news. It's definitely a must-read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/mo...=1&oref=slogin

Quote:

. . .

As it turns out, the hubbub over the remake was at least slightly premature. New Line hasn't yet purchased the remake rights. But it is currently going through the chain of title, the final step in securing the rights, with an eye toward making a deal with the producers Roy Lee, founder of Vertigo Entertainment and the reigning king of the Asian remake, and Neal Moritz, a producer of the "Fast and the Furious" films.

A chain of title mistake on "The Dukes of Hazzard" cost Warner Brothers, New Line's sister studio, $17.5 million; and the legal issues are especially complex with a property like "Battle Royale," a film inspired by a novel and inspiring a manga series, with five years' worth of ancillary products.

Mr. Lee said matters became further complicated when the Variety report upset the people at Toei, the Japanese film company that owns the original. "They were worried that maybe somebody connected with the film hadn't been contacted about the deal yet," he said.

. . .

Though Mr. Lee declined to discuss details of their plans, he did offer a few hints. The remake will still be about high school students. "We could make them a bunch of prisoners from jail taken to an island," he said, "but that would be pointless." It will take place in the United States, unlike Mr. Lee's remake of "The Grudge," which, like the original, was filmed in Japan.

The screenplay will draw as much from the novel as from the movie. And it won't be a PG film, or even PG-13. "If the original were put in front of an MPAA board, it would get an NC-17," Mr. Lee said. "So the remake is going to be at least an R."

Mr. Lee's response to critics of a "Battle Royale" remake? "I'm a fan of the original film," he said. "I would never want to make a movie that I thought was bad."

. . .

He'd never want to make a bad movie, huh? Please, Mr. Lee, explain The Grudge.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by XSO

I was gonna say "So I guess they got bored of making movies out of comic books then" but then I remembered that Battle Royale is also in comic book form. ._>

Well, it's not all that uncommon to find a novel being adapted into a manga in Japan. The manga came before the movie did anyways.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by AC-Lau

I have also yet to see the second one.

If you have to see the second one, watch the director's cut, Battle Royale II: REVENGE. It's still a crappy movie, but better than the theatrical cut.

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