And just when you thought Hollywood was through with reworking live-action Japanese properties for the big screen, here comes another!
Deadline is reporting that the December 2011 publication of the Hero’s Magazine manga, Soul Reviver is officially on track for a Hollywood English-language adaptation. The manga, authored by Akishige, Manabu and scribed by Fujisawa Tohru, centers on Ryusuke Jin, a former detective partnered with Clara Sekimachi, a dead high school girl, as both travel between realms of the living and the dead to rescue select souls whose missions in the living world were not complete.
Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the producer and director of the 2005 war epic, The Last Samurai, will act respectively, and provide the screenplay for the new film, which Herskovitz will produce for his banner, The Bedford Falls Company, in partnership with Fields Corporation and All Nippon Entertainment Works. Previous efforts to transition the fantasy action horror manga to film came in the form of a 3D CG-animated short from Shogakukan Productions to promote the manga’s third volume back in Spring of 2013, followed by a nine-minute shortfilm from 7 Blades helmer Kaizo Hayashi and starring Kenta Harada and Kanako Mizumoto.
That version is available for viewing below as of New Year’s Day followng the manga’s fourth issue release. No, it doesn’t suggest that this is what a Hollywood adaptation of Soul Reviver will look like seeing as how Zwick and Hayashi are filmmakers with differing visions.
That said, Fujisawa himself is endorsing the project, as stated by Anime News Network who writes the author “is looking forward to what kind of shape a Hollywood adaptation will take for his Japanese comic and its worldview.” So the question remains: Do you share Fujisawa’s sentiments?
Watch Hayashi’s latest short below and voice your opinions!
