New Films in Production

[Schkura]

Interview with Wim Wenders on SuicideGirls talking Don't Come Knocking:

[quote]Daniel Robert Epstein: What is it that makes an American playwright and a German director connect so well?

Wim Wenders: I don't really know if there's any other combination like the two of us. We just hit it off well from the beginning. I remember when we started Paris, Texas we told each other stories to find out if we had something in common. I drove Sam's car which he would never let anyone do. He put in his cassettes because he was sure he could play some music for me that I had never heard. When I heard it, I said “Wait a minute!â€

[jesus the mexican boi]

Cronenberg has no need for Painkillers

[flyonthewall2983]

Maps to the Stars could be interesting, if it'll be done as a comedy. Most of his films do have some humor in them, but I always thought it'd be interesting if Cronenberg did a more comedic effort.

By MICHAEL FLEMING

In a seven-figure deal, Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have rehired Steve Zaillian, this time to rewrite "American Gangster."

Studio has also committed to a late July start date for the film to be directed by Ridley Scott and star Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. Brian Grazer is producing.

Rewrite job and start date end speculation over whether U would step up to a reconfigured version of a film it killed last year.

Former U chair Stacey Snider had put the brakes on a version of the film that had Antoine Fuqua directing Washington and Benicio Del Toro as she feared the budget could top $100 million. It was an expensive move, since the actors had pay-or-play deals that had to be settled.

Zaillian had written the original script about a Harlem drug kingpin (Washington) who smuggled heroin in the body bags of U.S. soldiers slain in Vietnam.

After the film halted, U conscripted Terry George to pen a downsized version of the story, but Grazer and Imagine exec Jim Whitaker couldn't let go of Zaillian's vision of the crime story.

"When the film didn't go, you become detached and you get to examine how much weight the story had, and whether it has a natural life inside your psyche," Grazer said. "This particular story had a natural weight and made such an impression on my psyche that I couldn't let go of the images that would be created from that script."

The tide turned when Scott became interested in Zaillian's version and his "Gladiator" star Crowe followed. Grazer also had ties to Crowe after producing "A Beautiful Mind" and "Cinderella Man," and he and Scott persuaded Crowe to play the detective and juggle dates. Crowe is also starring this year with Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann's untitled period epic.

Washington, who opens today in the Universal/Imagine drama "The Inside Man," never lost interest in playing Lucas, a charismatic, illiterate man who found his niche in drug smuggling. Grazer predicted that even with the star power of Scott and Crowe, the film will cost no more than the version halted last year. Pic will shoot mostly in New York, with a brief stopover in Thailand.

Date in print: Fri., Mar. 24, 2006, Los Angeles

[Dylan]

From IMDB:

New Carlos Saura film "Io, Don Giovani" to start shooting this month in Austria. Cinematographer is Vittorio Storaro.

A drama based on the life of 18th century Italian lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte, who collaborated with Mozart on his "Don Giovanni" opera.

I'm certainly looking forward to it. I've only seen "Tango," which is great, and "Goya," which is pretty good, and both are filled with astounding cinematography and music. I haven't seen "Taxi" (no US DVD) or "Flamenco" yet (or any other Saura for that matter...quite a lot of what he has done sounds great, though).

For those who haven't heard, pre-production has begun on Brian De Palma's next film (following "Black Dahlia"), "Toyer," which is a straight out horror film to be shot in Italy.

Toyer is a madman, highly intelligent and masterfully manipulative, he charms his way into the homes of his victims, all beautiful young women and skillfully labotomizes them.

Sounds creepy. Colin Firth will play Toyer, Juliette Binoche is attatched as the female lead, and Pino Donaggio has confirmed in a recent interview that he is attatched as composer (marking this his 7th film with De Palma, but the first in 14 years).

Immediately after "Toyer" is wrapped, De Palma is to direct the "Untouchables" sequel (which he is also co-writing). That should be a lot of fun as well. He's as busy and versatile as ever.

[Narshty]

Toyer is a madman, highly intelligent and masterfully manipulative, he charms his way into the homes of his victims, all beautiful young women and skillfully labotomizes them.

Talk about your dumb blondes. I can't wait.

[gubbelsj]

Joe Tornatore probably isn't a director many on this board care much about (or have heard of, likely - I sure hadn't), but this is a rather funny article from NY Times online about Tornatore choosing Cincinnati as a cheap location for his "upcoming" film Immortally Yours. A bit condescending towards my old stomping grounds, the Midwest, but pretty good nonetheless.

[Dear Catastrophe Totoro]

Anyone else interested in this one? This has been in preproduction limbo for over a year now. At first, the announcement was an overwhelming downer - even Chabon was surprised by the news, and seemed nonplussed to say the least. I haven't seen a Stephen Daldry film that I've been impressed with, and for the love of god, Jude Law as Joe Kavalier?

Thankfully, the situation seems to be improving. First, Jude Law is no longer attached. Second, Chabon himself has stepped in to write the screenplay. I guess I won't be able to bitch about a lack of faithfulness to the source material.

To be honest, I would be happy to see this project fall apart before production, although adapting this book isn't that horrible of an idea. Chabon has such a visual style of writing that it switches my mind's eye to letterbox format. His only work to be adapted so far, Wonder Boys, is basically the novel - one scene + tinkering at the end. His newest work, The Final Solution, could be turned into a screenplay by writing "shooting script" on the front cover. However, I doubt a film version of Kavalier & Clay could do the book justice and be marketable. It seems impossible to make it into a 3 hour film, let alone what will probably amount to a 2 and a half hour film.

Any fans of the book? Comments? I'm curious as to how the film will balance the comic book segments with the actual story (I'm predicting the previews will try to sell this film as a superhero movie).

[Lino]

This looks positively amazing - from the Pang Brothers, the creators of The Eye series of films, I give you Re-cycle.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Courtesy of The New York Times:

April 23, 2006
Hollywood's One Remaining Taboo Found in 'Black Snake Moan'
By ROSS JOHNSON

LOS ANGELES

IF Craig Brewer hoped to shock with his "Black Snake Moan," the filmmaker got what he wanted last month when visitors to Paramount's dubbing stage 28 watched a five-minute clip from his work in progress.

What caused a jolt wasn't just the arresting image of a gold-toothed Samuel L. Jackson growling out a profane rendition of the blues classic "Staggerlee," recorded live in a raucous Memphis juke joint. It was Christina Ricci, the lily-white alternative film princess, her torn lip a welt of red, her dirty blond hair tossed from side to side, grinding her sweat-drenched body against black men and women on the dance floor as Jackson looked on from the stage.

Hollywood, which has often stepped cautiously around the subject of interracial sex, is definitely doing something different with "Black Snake Moan" — which includes a sequence that finds the nearly nude Ms. Ricci chained in Mr. Jackson's kitchen.

The film, a tour through the intricacies of Southern sex and music, reunites Mr. Brewer, its writer and director, with the cinematographer Amy Vincent and the editor Billy Fox, all of whom worked on last year's "Hustle & Flow."

For the 34-year-old Mr. Brewer, who sticks close to Memphis with his wife and young child when he's not casting his films in Hollywood or showing them on the lot, it represents a breakthrough of sorts: he is working directly with Paramount Classics, the studio's specialty division, after making his first two features on the independent circuit.

And for Paramount, the film amounts to a grab for perhaps the most elusive and highly coveted asset in contemporary show business — pop culture credibility. Mr. Brewer contends that his credibility is home-grown.

"I go to places in Memphis like the juke joint in 'Black Snake,' " Mr. Brewer said as he drove across the Paramount lot in late March. "Everybody, whether they're black or white, is just all over each other. It's like an orgy."

"Hustle & Flow" rocked the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with its tale of a weary black pimp in Memphis seeking salvation through rap music. Six months later, Paramount Classics, the specialty-film division of Paramount Pictures, spent tens of millions of dollars promoting the July 2005 theatrical release, which drew a young audience — though one not as large as the studio hoped — looking for urban grit and great music. But it also left many African-Americans, especially women, feeling that the racial politics of the film created by Mr. Brewer, a white man, was all wrong.

"Martin and Malcolm are surely turning in their graves," wrote Erin Aubry Kaplan in the LA Weekly, a Los Angeles alternative paper. Of the film's central character, Djay, played by Terrence Howard, Stanley Crouch wrote in The New York Daily News: "The pimp is airbrushed and carries himself like just another ignorant Negro trying to get above the bottom."

(The New York Times took a more moderate position in its review: "It's hard to hate a movie that falls so completely for its own hustle," A. O. Scott wrote.)

Still, "Hustle" boosted Paramount's fortunes at the Academy Awards this year, when Mr. Howard was nominated as best actor, and the film's signature anthem, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from the Memphis group Three 6 Mafia, became the first rap song to win an Oscar for best original song.

With "Black Snake Moan," Mr. Brewer sticks close to his turf, though the story line and musical genre shift. Mr. Jackson plays an elderly bluesman who at one point chains a young, promiscuous woman, Ms. Ricci's character, to a radiator in a Mississippi Delta shack — all part of a tense, spiritual confrontation to exorcise her sexual-addiction demons. The Memphis native and pop idol Justin Timberlake, a cousin of Mr. Brewer, plays Ms. Ricci's jilted boyfriend.

Though "Black Snake Moan" does not yet have a release date, Mr. Brewer is already struggling with what he sees as misperceptions about its sexual dynamics. "It's not about Sam Jackson curing Christina of nymphomania," Mr. Brewer groaned after a reporter read a description of the film that has been posted on numerous Web sites.

"Nymphomania is not a clinical term; it's just something people throw out about women who are promiscuous," Mr. Brewer said. He added, "People want and go after sex, but that's not something that's always a fun and pleasurable ride."

Stephanie Allain, Mr. Brewer's partner in the production company Southern Cross the Dog and the producer of both "Hustle" and "Black Snake Moan," acknowledged that the filmmaker "likes to push things right to the point of exploitation." But she said Ms. Ricci's character's couplings with a wide assortment of men in the film are not about sexual gratification.

"Christina's character is someone who was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and looks everywhere for love and is filled with anger because she's never found it," Ms. Allain said. "The story turns when she's spiritually confronted by a man who's consumed with anger because the woman he's loved all his life has left him."

According to John Singleton, the writer and director of "Boyz N the Hood" and other films, who personally financed "Hustle" and is one of the producers of "Black Snake," any clamor about the sexual politics surrounding Mr. Brewer's films misses a larger point. "Hollywood doesn't just have a problem with people of color having sex on-screen," Mr. Singleton said. "It's uptight about anybody having sex."

And Mr. Singleton said people who questioned why he and Ms. Allain, who are both black, choose to make films rooted in the urban experience with a white writer/director are simply shortsighted. "I like working with Craig," he explained, "because he makes the effort to find out as much as possible about the people in the film he's making, unlike a lot of others I know."

Mr. Brewer has other assets that have served him well in a suddenly burgeoning film career. First, though he grew up in Chicago, in the San Francisco area's East Bay and in Southern California, in Orange County, before moving to Memphis at the age of 21, he is a Southern-style raconteur. Grandson on his mother's side of the late, Tennessee-born Marvelous Marv Throneberry, the quote-spewing player on the 1962 New York Mets, Mr. Brewer loves Flannery O'Connor and Tennessee Williams and can recite the film version of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" line by line.

And, though a transplant, Mr. Brewer knows his Southern music. He and Mr. Singleton bonded over their affection for the Memphis Crunk rap, featured in "Hustle," of Three 6 Mafia and Al Kapone. In "Black Snake Moan," which derives its title from a Blind Lemon Jefferson song of the 1920's, the respect that the two filmmakers share for Southern blues is obvious. (Mr. Jefferson hailed from East Texas.)

According to Mr. Brewer, Mr. Jackson's flamboyant character in "Black Snake Moan" is strongly influenced by R. L. Burnside, the Northern Mississippi bluesman who achieved notoriety at the age of 64 in 1992 when the newly formed Fat Possum record label released "Bad Luck City." Mr. Burnside's teaming with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on a 1996 album cemented his popularity among blues fans and became a staple on the college fraternity party circuit.

To prepare for "Black Snake Moan," the actor and the director joined the music supervisor, Scott Bomar, on a three-day road trip in August, just before Mr. Jackson went into a Memphis studio with an all-star group of sidemen to record five tracks for the film.

"We all just hopped in a car I rented and took off through Mississippi," Mr. Bomar said. "Sam got to see the Fat Possum studio in Oxford, and we took him to Clarksdale to the crossroads where it's said Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil. To watch Sam soak everything up and just become a character from that region was something I'll never forget."

Mr. Brewer is well aware that the politics of the blues — a form that many blacks feel was long ago appropriated by whites, leaving them to find new forms of musical expression — can be as heated as the sexual politics of the pimps and prostitutes in "Hustle & Flow." "I'm a blues fan who lives in the South," he said. "I'm not into a celebration of the divide, and I'm not telling stories to be the writer who just visits the South to be a rescuer and healer."

As for Ms. Ricci's provocative juke joint performance, Mr. Brewer insisted that it ultimately had nothing to do with race, lust or even the music. "The dance Christina Ricci does is not about her wanting sex," he said. "It's a Pentecostal dance that celebrates the freeing of demons in her head."

"Her character is conflicted," he said. "Like all of us."

Pacino and Soderbergh?

From LatinoReview.com:

Ocean's 13: According to Variety, Al Pacino has been added to Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Thirteen" gang. Thesp joins the cast -- headed by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle and Bernie Mac -- and their franchise's new leading lady, Ellen Barkin. Jerry Weintraub is producing the pic, which has a July 21 start date. Shooting is scheduled to take place in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. "Rounders" scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien penned the script. Details of the plot are being kept under wraps, but Warners revealed that Pacino will be playing Willie Banks, the owner of a high-profile casino and hotel in Las Vegas.

From Latino Review:

Raimi To Descend 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!
Date: May 3, 2006

By: Kellvin Chavez
Source: Variety

According to Variety, New Line will descend to "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," snapping up Craig Titley's pitch for an updated version of Jules Verne's novel and setting it up with Sam Raimi and Josh Donen through their Buckaroo banner.

Deal doesn't include a directing component for the "Spider-Man" helmer. New Line is developing the project as a film that would look more closely into the background of Captain Nemo as well as that of his prisoners aboard the Nautilus.

Disney's original "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," released in 1954, starred James Mason, Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre in the story of a 19th century expedition to find a mysterious sea creature that's been attacking ships.

[Cobalt60]

Still, "Hustle" boosted Paramount's fortunes at the Academy Awards this year, when Mr. Howard was nominated as best actor, and the film's signature anthem, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from the Memphis group Three 6 Mafia, became the first rap song to win an Oscar for best original song.

No, "Lose Yourself" was in 2002. Do your homework Ross

[Titus]

Looks like Miyazaki will be unveiling his next project in a couple of days, according to Nausicaa.net. Should be interesting...

[Dear Catastrophe Totoro]

Looks like Miyazaki will be unveiling his next project in a couple of days, according to Nausicaa.net. Should be interesting...

Hmm. So he didn't actually announce anything. Interesting.

Happy Children's Day, though!

[Antoine Doinel]

Heath Ledger has replaced Collin Farrel in Todd Haynes' Dylan film, I'm Not There. From the Guardian:

Colin Farrell has reportedly been dropped from the lead in the upcoming Bob Dylan project and been replaced with Heath Ledger. According to FoxNews.com, the abrupt switch was a last-minute move by director Todd Haynes after Farrell dropped out of the project for undisclosed reasons. Ledger, whose stock has risen dramatically since his astonishing performance in Brokeback Mountain, joins Christian Bale and Richard Gere as one of six actors set to portray Dylan in I'm Not There, which begins shooting this summer. Farrell checked into rehab last year and recently starred in Terrence Malick's The New World. He will next be seen opposite Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's summer release Miami Vice.

[HerrSchreck]

This looks positively amazing - from the Pang Brothers, the creators of The Eye series of films, I give you Re-cycle

I love those guys. BANGKOK DANGEROUS & THE EYE were some of the most visually interesting new films I'd seen in quite a while. Did anyone see EYE2?

[Matt]

Lest I be accused of singling anyone out, shame on and woebetide any and all of you who pass judgment on an unseen movie. When the revolution comes, you'll be the first ones in front of the firing squad.

[Antoine Doinel]

So Chris Rock is directing a remake of Eric Rohmer's Choloe In The Afternoon. From JoBlo:

Chris Rock has moved into the directing position for I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE, a film in which he was originally only slated to star. The movie's original director, Charles Stone III (DRUMLINE), dropped out for unspecified reasons. Rock will direct himself as a family man whose fidelity is tested when his old flame enters the picture. Gina Torres, of SERENITY and "Firefly" fame, and Kerry Washington, from FANTASTIC FOUR and the upcoming Wayans Brothers comedy LITTLE MAN, have joined the cast as wife and old flame, respectively. I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE, a remake of Eric Rohmer's 1972 French comedy CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON, marks Rock's second directorial effort after 2003's HEAD OF STATE and will come from a script by Rock and comedian/filmmaker Louis C.K. Original director Stone will presumably move onto his other announced project, directing TEKKEN, an adaptation of the video game franchise. I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE will be released by Fox Searchlight, most likely sometime in 2007.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Del Toro, Cuaron Team Up For 'Witches'!
Date: May 18, 2006

By: Kellvin Chavez
Source: Variety

Guillermo del Toro, whose "Pan's Labyrinth" plays in competition May 27, is teaming with fellow Mexican helmer Alfonso Cuaron on an English-lingo adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1973 book "The Witches" for Warner Bros, says Variety.

Cuaron inked a three-year, first-look production deal with Warners in 2004.

Del Toro is set to direct from his screenplay; Cuaron, who contributed a seg to today's Un Certain Regard opener "Paris, Je t'aime," will produce through his New York-based shingle Esperanto.

The teaming of Del Toro and Cuaron, two of Mexico's leading filmmakers, forms part of a far larger, longterm friendship, said Cuaron.

"I wouldn't do anything without showing it to Guillermo and I think that's vice-versa," said Cuaron, "and the same with Alejandro" Gonzalez Inarritu, Mexico's other leading filmmaking talent.

"James and the Giant Peach" and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" were both based on Dahl stories.

Del Toro said his "Witches" adaptation would be "quite smaller but most likely very much designed," said Del Toro, alluding to the eye-popping look of the previous pics. Hehas written 70-plus of what he expects will be a 100-page screenplay.

Brit helmer Nicolas Roeg made a bigscreen adaptation of "The Witches" in 1989.

For Del Toro, "The Roeg film is a brilliant movie but certain aspects are a departure from Dahl's original.

"Dahl had the brilliance of writing children's stories which shocked adults," said Del Toro.

Del Toro has not determined the start of principal photography, but then, he has a lot of balls in the air.

Futuristic thriller "Killing on Carnival Row" is set up at New Line, with Arnold and Anne Kopleson producing through Kopelson Entertainment. A screenplay has been delivered, said Del Toro, but with no budget nor cast, project has still to be greenlit. Other majors are reviewing "Hellboy II," which was at Revolution Studios, as Sony has bowed out.

For his part, Cuaron said he was "totally immersed" in post on "Children of Men," toplining Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. Cuaron has "a pair of projects" at WB, and "Mexico '68," about a Mexican student massacre in 1968, set up at Anhelo Producciones, a shingle he formed with Guadalajara-based producer Jorge Vergara.

"I think I might gravitate towards a non-studio project," he said.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Wait, what the hell is this?

Naomi Watts has been cast as the female lead in David Cronenberg's London thriller "Eastern Promises" for Focus Features and BBC Films.

Pic will start shooting in November, right after Watts finishes filming on Michael Haneke's remake of his own psycho-drama "Funny Games."

"Eastern Promises," scripted by Steve Knight, delves into the same seedy underside of London life that he explored in "Dirty Pretty Things."

Watts, who was Oscar-nominated for "Mulholland Drive," will play Anna, a midwife at a London hospital who gets dragged into the criminal underworld when she tries to discover the identity of a dead patient.

Viggo Mortensen is set to play the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai, a man with links to one of London's most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is thrown into turmoil when he crosses paths with Anna.

Paul Webster of Kudos Film will produce, with Focus taking worldwide rights and BBC Films retaining U.K. TV.

Meanwhile, Hamish McAlpine's Tartan Films and Chris Coen's Halcyon Pictures have joined forces with French sales outfit Celluloid Dreams to produce Haneke's English-lingo remake of "Funny Games," which will start shooting in September.

Originally made in German in 1997, it's the story of a middle-class family on holiday who are terrorized by two young men.

Watts most recently starred in Warner Independent's Asian romancer "The Painted Veil" alongside Ed Norton.

I'm usually up for whatever Haneke does, but I can't say I'm thrilled about this.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

An article on Eastwood's latest movies.

[Antoine Doinel]

James Cameron's next movie:

In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture.

Personally, the Ripley project sounds more intriguing to me, but it will be interesting to see what Burton does with Sweeney Todd, especially if he can snare Depp. Seeing as how Depp's Shantaram is now without a director, I can see him hopping onto this project right away.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Ageed. The subject matter of Todd seems ideal for a Burton-Depp teaming and I can only imagine the set design for this movie will be!

From Dark Horizons:

Thraves Directs Ian Curtis Biopic
Posted: Monday June 19th, 2006 1:27am
Source: Production Weekly
Author: Garth Franklin

Music video director Jamie Thraves will direct "All The Time" based on Mick Middles and Lindsay Reade's book "Torn Apart: The Life Of Ian Curtis" reports Production Weekly.

Cloaked in mystique, Joy Division's extraordinary vocalist Ian Curtis tragically took his own life in 1980, leaving just two haunting albums and a depleted band that would famously evolve into New Order. 25 years later, the enigma of Ian Curtis has deepened to an unprecedented level.

Devotees make regular pilgrimages to both his hometown of Macclesfield and to Manchester, where the story of Joy Division and Factory Records has left a profound mark on the city. The film examines his life, his work, his relationships and the cultural environment in which he lived and died.

Tom Browne adapted the screenplay, which chronicles Ian Curtis' early efforts to launch Joy Division while holding down a government job. Filming will take place in Manchester at a yet-to-be-determined date.

[Lino]

A rare treat: see the storyboards for Jodorowsky's new movie!

[miless]

From Dark Horizons:

Thraves Directs Ian Curtis Biopic
Posted: Monday June 19th, 2006 1:27am
Source: Production Weekly
Author: Garth Franklin

Music video director Jamie Thraves will direct "All The Time" based on Mick Middles and Lindsay Reade's book "Torn Apart: The Life Of Ian Curtis" reports Production Weekly.

Cloaked in mystique, Joy Division's extraordinary vocalist Ian Curtis tragically took his own life in 1980, leaving just two haunting albums and a depleted band that would famously evolve into New Order. 25 years later, the enigma of Ian Curtis has deepened to an unprecedented level.

Devotees make regular pilgrimages to both his hometown of Macclesfield and to Manchester, where the story of Joy Division and Factory Records has left a profound mark on the city. The film examines his life, his work, his relationships and the cultural environment in which he lived and died.

Tom Browne adapted the screenplay, which chronicles Ian Curtis' early efforts to launch Joy Division while holding down a government job. Filming will take place in Manchester at a yet-to-be-determined date.

I could have sworn that Anton Corbijn (a good friend of Ian Curtis, and director of the only Joy Division music video) was going to direct a film about Ian and Joy Division... I wonder if this is the same project

[Fletch F. Fletch]

From The New York Times:

Lesson Plan: Kill or Be Killed
By ROBERT ITO
LOS ANGELES

WHEN Variety reported last month that New Line Cinema had purchased rights to remake the director Kinji Fukasaku's "Battle Royale," the reaction on fan sites and Asian film blogs was, well, heartfelt. "I hate Hollywood," wrote one fan. "Is nothing sacred?" asked another.

Die-hard fans of Asian film are quick to recoil at any remake, whether it's "The Ring" or "Shall We Dance?" or this summer's "Lake House." But with "Battle Royale" the reaction has been particularly vehement. Devotees love it, after all, in large part because they believe it's the kind of movie Hollywood would never make.

One of Japan's most violent and controversial films, "Battle Royale," based on a popular novel by Koushun Takami, tells the story of 42 ninth graders who are kidnapped, taken to a deserted island and forced to kill one another. Criticized by Japanese politicians when it was first released in 2000, the movie became a huge hit at home and in much of Asia, spawning a popular manga series, inspiring a sequel and generating memorabilia from costumes to card games and action figures.

Despite its success, the film was never released in the United States, and many in the industry said they thought it never would be. In post-Columbine America, they said, audiences weren't ready to watch 14-year-olds — even cute ones in stylish school uniforms — maiming and killing one another with axes, crossbows and automatic weapons.

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.

In the original movie the actor-director Takeshi Kitano plays the teacher of the ill-fated high school class. The premise is that the Japanese government in a draconian effort to stem increasing juvenile delinquency, once a year randomly selects a ninth-grade class, outfits each student with a different weapon and gives them three days to murder their classmates; the last one standing is deemed the winner.

"It sounds like the most lurid and exploitative movie," said Grady Hendrix, co-founder of the New York Asian Film Festival. "But the message is, these are kids that are raised in a sick society by parents who have failed them. I think it is one of the most humane movies ever made."

When Mr. Lee first saw the film in 2000, he was stunned by the carnage but intrigued by its antiwar, antiviolence message. He shopped the movie to every studio in town, he said: "At Universal I remember they said, 'You're having kids kill each other?' I said, 'Yeah, that's pretty much the story.' They told me, 'There is no way Universal is ever going to make this movie.' "

One by one the other studios passed. Toei, for its part, couldn't find an American distributor for the original. In Hollywood rumors spread that Toei was asking for too much money, or that it was scared off by concerns about a possible lawsuit stemming from copycat crimes.

Fast forward to 2006, when Mr. Lee found a fellow fan in Jeff Katz, a director of development at New Line. Mr. Moritz soon joined the effort to purchase the remake rights.

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."

Such assurances are unlikely to ease the fears of the most ardent fans of the original, who extol its merits on sites like battleroyalefilm.net and Fight4Survival (at eosophobia.net/f4s/) and attend anime conventions dressed as their favorite characters, complete with gunshot wounds and fake explosive collars. (In the film the collars detonate if there is more than one survivor at game's end.)

Online fans have criticized not only the remake plans but also the American film industry and American film fans, considered too lazy to read subtitles.

"I think people who feel very personally about 'Battle Royale' and feel that it speaks to them are disappointed that a remake is going to hit screens and not the original," Mr. Hendrix said. "But I also think people are much more intelligent in real life than they come across online. At least I hope so, for the sake of humanity."

Anne Vatnedalen, the creator of the Fight4Survival fan site, is trying to remain hopeful but is "worried it will just be made into a typical American teenage slasher movie," she said. " 'Battle Royale' is about so much more than the violence in itself."

That sentiment isn't lost on Mr. Lee, who's dealing in a genre associated more with stabbings and spewing blood — which, incidentally, 'Battle Royale' has aplenty — than with high-minded ideals. "Everyone involved wants to try to push the movie's pacifist angle," he said.

"This is the one I'm going to be the most careful with," he said of his remake. "Because it's the one that could most easily veer off into exploitation."

[Dylan]

Last week, Woody Allen began filming his third London film (as yet untitled) scheduled for release next Summer. It will star Ewen McGregor, Colin Farrell, Sally Hawkins, and Tom Wilkinson. Cinematographer is Vilmos Zsigmond.

Photo Links: 1. 2. 3.