Hollywood’s track record with mangas is decidedly mixed (actually it’s not very good), but as they say, if at first you don’t succeed…. And so here comes "Soul ReViver," which has Ed Zwick now attached to direct the adaptation of the work by Tohru Fujisawa and Manabu Akishige. The story will follow "Jin and Clara, two soul revivers who have the ability to move between the worlds of the living and the dead and to bring certain people back whose mission on Earth was not complete at the time of their demise." Zwick is co-writing and will direct and the plan is to get this in theatres for 2016. [Deadline]
As Fatih Akin preps "The Cut" for Venice, there’s one project he’s walking away from. The director has written a script about Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was murdered in 2007. Dink had worked to reconcile relations between Turks and Armenians, but stirred controversy when he suggested the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide. "I couldn’t persuade any Turkish actors to play Hrant’s role. All of them found the script too harsh. That’s why I had to cancel the project," Akin said. "I did not want any actor to get hurt. But it was important to make a ‘Turkish film’ about Hrant. An American or French actor could not play Hrant. We have to deal with this issue ourselves. But obviously time is not yet ripe for it." [GlobalPost]
Gabriele Muccino ("Seven Pounds," "The Pursuit Of Happyness") will direct the sci-fi thriller "Near Death." Carter Blanchard ("ID Forever") penned the script about "a near-death survivor who starts predicting future events and acting in bizarre ways while his wife notices the world itself changing all around her in impossible ways. Fearing for her sanity, she investigates and uncovers a massive conspiracy that bridges space and time." Casting begins in October and probably filming not long after. [Variety]
The "Buried" team of director Rodrigo Cortes and writer Chris Sparling are reuniting for an adaptation of Lois Duncan’s "Down A Dark Hall," and even more, "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer is throwing herself in the ring as a producer. The story follows "Kit Gordy as she starts at an elite boarding school where dark powers lurk and her personal destiny hangs in the balance." Sounds familiar…. [Screen Daily]
