American producers look to remake Battle Royale

Paul

Paul

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According to AICN, Roy Lee (producer of the American adaptations of Ringu and Dark Water) and Neal Moritz (producer of The Fast and the Furious and xXx) have turned their eyes on producing an American remake of cult classic Japanese high-school shoot-'em-up Battle Royale.

Given its controversial nature, Battle Royale hasn't even been released on DVD in the US.
 
Technically the reason why it hasn't been released in the US is something to do with Toho's asking price, apparently there somewhat outrageous, the thought of anyone remaking Battle Royale turns my stomach but Americans? No thanks, I dont want some toned down PG-13 no social commentary piece of crap.
 
I concur. I'd rather not have the American version than have it and see how crap it is compared to the Japanese version...

They should show the original on Channel 4 like they did with Ringu!
 
The movie that'd never be made in the west is getting made in the west!

I'm so going fanboy right now, as long as they have some character like Mitsuko Souma I don't even care if the movie will suck, bring it on. <3

BR:II Requiem wasn't that good, but the original BR is so great I have it on my PC and on DVD. xD
 
A couple of 'hip' producers whose speciality is churning out Z-grade chav fodder taking on one of the most uncompromising, original films of the last decade? It's going to be The O.C with air rifles, mark my words.
 
Remaking is just a bad idea. I'm torn between what's worse, a remake of BR or a remake of Oldboy. Both are arguably modern classics (especially Oldboy) and it seems somewhat insulting to remake them.

If it's done in the right way, a proper gritty American BR could be quite interesting. Unfortunately though, with these kind of names attached, it will be another efficient and polished action movie.
 
kupoartist said:
Fast and the Furious? xXx? Dark Water? The Ring?! With that pedigree how could they possibly fail to make a bad movie?
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The sad thing is that it'll probably be a hit at the box office the same as those other films, and then, the inevitable sequel will emerge. I should think they'll only take the "bunch-of-schoolkids-with-weapons-on-a-desert-island" theme and probably tone the violence down a bit to appeal to a wider audience...

... Once again we see the unoriginality of mainstream Western Filmmakers on show for the world to see. On the upside: this remake could help to raise interest in Japanese Cinema in the same way as the remake of Ringu sort of did.
 
Paranoia Agent said:
A couple of 'hip' producers whose speciality is churning out Z-grade chav fodder taking on one of the most uncompromising, original films of the last decade? It's going to be The O.C with air rifles, mark my words.
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The sad thing is that Battle Royale already seems to have attracted the chav market so this will probably do well for them. This is based upon some of the people I have seen buying the BR manga while I've been out shopping...
 
I think in this case Battle Royale is going to be much worse than Oldboy, sure Oldboy won't be Oldboy without the incest but I dont think the re-make will get such a raw deal that Battle Royale will.
 
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I'm not holding much hope for a remake of Battle Royale (I reckon it'll be populated with too many characters who are overly macho and up for killing each other - part of the charm of BR for me was the mixture of reactions from the schoolkids) but then I've begun seriously hating Hollywood at the moment because they don't seem to produce anything orginal!

I suppose it'd be good if it gets more people to check out the orginal and realise how much better Asian cinema can be...
 
Hollywood really is irritating me, as If the remake's of Ring, The Grudge and other J-Horror movies wasn't enough, not only is Battle Royale and Oldboy on the cards, but A Tale of Two Sisters is also set to be remade and Seven Samurai which apparently will have Zhang Ziyi (has america not realised that shes Chinese and not Japanese yet?) and George bloody Cloony of all people, I mean really Hollywood are destroying great films, this kind of thing deters people from watching foreign films (mostly idiots that seem to be allergic to subtitles and reading alltogether) they'll allways pick the English language re-make over the original even if its incredibly inferior or not.
 
Ramen89 said:
Hollywood really is irritating me, as If the remake's of Ring, The Grudge and other J-Horror movies wasn't enough, not only is Battle Royale and Oldboy on the cards, but A Tale of Two Sisters is also set to be remade and Seven Samurai which apparently will have Zhang Ziyi (has america not realised that shes Chinese and not Japanese yet?) and George bloody Cloony of all people, I mean really Hollywood are destroying great films, this kind of thing deters people from watching foreign films (mostly idiots that seem to be allergic to subtitles and reading alltogether) they'll allways pick the English language re-make over the original even if its incredibly inferior or not.
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The really stupid thing with a Seven Samurai remake is that they already did that with the Magnificent Seven... Can't Hollywood just leave well enough alone?
 
I hope to god they do not re-make a already great movie, and make a crappy "american" version, hollywood loves doing that. But also they are re-making Infernal Affairs when will it end???
 
Ah yes Infernal Affair's, that will probably be pretty decent though seeing as its being directed by Martin Scorsese, but still it seems pretty unesscecary.
 
Sometimes remakes work to a certain degree - the Ring remake wasn't bad as mainstream horrors go but pretty much anyone who watches it will agree that the original is far superior. There is an additional problem in this sort of case in that there are cultural references and issues that are lost in translation so the story loses some of its impact during the transition. If they are planning to do a US-friendly remake of a film that wasn't accepted by the US industry in the first place it's almost certainly going to lose some of what made it so special.

BR is IMO a masterpiece of a film that balances violence, drama, social commentary and satire perfectly: it's a film that doesn't need to be remade. If this project goes ahead I'll be very disappointed indeed.

Mr Fukasaku will be turning in his grave.
 
I can't see this ever being anywhere like the Japanese original, not after Columbine and the copycat shootings that still plague their schools. I think that was the other reason the Japanese version has never been licensed there. No distributor wants to gamble on a backlash from the media by what they call "soccer moms".
 
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