Ninja Scroll ~ Live action movie

[shaolindogpaw]

I just picked this up in the news. I have mixed feelings about a live action movie of Ninja Scroll. It was one of the first anime movies I had ever watched, along with Akira and Ghost in the Shell.

The bad & ugly: I'm just bored with Hollywood. Theres no originality anymore and they make too many movies about comic books. If they're going to saturate the market with crappy live action movies of anime, it will just strengthen my dis-interest for American cinema.

The good: I would love to see live action movies of my favorite anime movies. How cool would that be? But, it has to be done right. Use Asian actors.

Also in the works:
Steven Spielberg will adapt Ghost in the Shell
Director M. Night Shyamalan will direct The Last Airbender < Please, no...
Leonardo DiCaprio will produce two films based on the popular anime story Akira

For the record, I absolutely loved Speed Racer. I don't buy too many American produced movies but I bought this one. Loved it.




Legendary Anime Ninja Scroll to Get Live-Action Treatment
By Scott Thill EmailOctober 27, 2008 | 4:57:00 PMCategories: Animation, Anime, Comics, Japan, Movies, Television

Yoshiaki Kawajiri's horny, hyperviolent Ninja Scroll animated movie is headed for a live-action iteration.

Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to Kawajiri's classic anime, according to Variety.

Along with Akira and Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll helped manga and anime explode in the United States in the mid-'90s, influencing everything from The Matrix to the Wu-Tang Clan. The 10th anniversary Ninja Scroll DVD (pictured) was released in 1996.

Alex Tse, who was tapped to write scripts for Warner's upcoming Watchmen and The Illustrated Man, will scribe for Ninja. Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way will produce the film in conjunction with Mad House.

However, at last report, DiCaprio will not appear in the film. Too bad. He might have made a good Jubei, the protagonist ninja vagabond who hacks and slashes his way through a host of good, bad and ugly enemies. After a few years of intensive martial arts training, of course.

Opinions?

[blue_skies]

I've only seen Ninja Scroll once and did enjoy it a lot. Anyway my opinion is it simply can't be remade into a Hollywood live action movie. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong and I'm thinking of a different film but it was extremely violent. There's no way they are going to have all of the excessive blood squirting and decapitations required to stay true to the source material. Hollywood is increasingly releasing movies as PG 13 and Ninja Scroll would have to be an extremely hard R rated movie (or 18 certificate over here in the UK).

Shaolin dog paw, I completely agree they make too many comic-book movies and to be perfectly honest I'm completely sick of them. I long for the days when Hollywood used to make adult action movies with real violence sequences, blood and gore, and swearing. I very rarely get excited about any new Hollywood releases because the action is nearly always just so tame.

[shaolindogpaw]

I completely agree with you. The past few years, Hollywood has been releasing movies as part of a business model. "How much money can we make off of this and how are we going to achieve a maximum profit?"

Families generate more money for movies. A family of 5 is 5 ticket sells in one fell swoop. The kids want candy and popcorn, thats more money towards concessions. Example: Batman TDK should have been more hardcore and went for the R rating. It's the Dark Knight, why wasn't it dark? Alot of people said it was dark, gimme a break, it was whiney but not dark.

Hopefully the Ninja Scroll movie won't be marketed towards kids. Maybe they'll do the right thing and stay true to the original, I doubt it, but one can always hope.

[Way of the Dragon]

I dont really know if it would work being a hollywood film, I enjoyed the anime a lot and there was so much blood and violence and action which I dont think actors can do.
this was the first anime i watched along with Akira and Ghost in the Shell too.
Steven Speilberg doing Ghost in the Shell i dont think will be any good, i dont really think he can create a good, dark sci-fi.

[daisho2004]

I been hearing about the Live Action Ninja Scroll movie for a while now. And I agree with you Guys also, I just can't see this movie being very Violent & Gory like the Anime movie was. And that is one of my favorite Anime movies.

[CrazyFrog]

WOTD, I think Spielberg can do dark. I don't know if he can pull of Ghost in The Shell, but Minority Report, War of the Worlds, and Munich all had pretty dark elements to them.

I think Ninja Scroll- no way in hell could that be done right unless you put someone like Takashi Miike on it. If he wanted to do it. It's a total fantasy, and a very violent one with extremely sexual elements to it. It shouldn't be done; why not at least make another stab at a semi-original ninja movie?

[HyperDrive]

Same here.

I rather have Takashi Miike or Nam Nai Choi be the director of live-action versions of Ninja Scroll and Akira then Hollywood.

[dyenboy]

it will be a travesity if speilberg does any anime, thats not his strong point and will fail miserably. Speilberg has no history of doing these type of movies and should not

Bring in quentin, at least he can do a better job than speilberg, come one speilberg doing ghost in a shell or ninja scroll, blah

[gunswordfist]

OH GOD!!!! Speilberg is going to waste his time on Ghost In The Shell? I've been looking forward to a good new Spielberg project for a long time and now I got to watch my favorite director do an anime series that puts me to sleep. First, Spielberg does a sorry Wii game, then his big budget animated movie with Peter Jackson (another great director) gets the boot and NOW this! I can't wait for James Cameron's Battle Angel to blow the BS GitS movie out of the water. Hell, Avatar will make GitS series look like a waste of time.

[TrickyNicky]

This can't turn out well if they stay true to the material. It has to be changed in the same way you couldn't have cornball transformers and GIJoe.