Resurrection Comes to Hollywood

The box office hit film “Resurrection” (”Yomigaeri”) will get the Hollywood treatment this year from the folks at DreamWorks. The studio has acquired the rights from Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) to remake the movie based on the popular novel from writer Shinji Kajio.

This is a real coup d’état for DreamWorks because TBS is infamous for not letting go of its rights over any project it owns, so the incentive must have been quite “large” for them to relinguish their hold on this product to a Western studio.

This is just another in a list of film projects Hollywood has been buying up from Japan, continuing such efforts spring-boarded by the earlier success of “The Ring” franchise. Earlier this year the rights to “Ghost in the Shell” was also acquired for an American 3-D live-action remake. Also on tap from Sony is the adaptation of the trilogy “The Noble Warriors.”

“Resurrection” tells the story of a government official who is sent to a rural town to investigate a child who, after vanishing for 60 years, returns to his family without having aged a minute.
DreamWorks has tapped scribe William Nicholson of “Gladiator” fame to write the screenplay which is scheduled to begin filming by the end of this year.