The Weinsteins Move Forward With SHANGHAI And Their SEVEN SAMURAI Remake!!
Merrick here...
The Weinstein Company is backing two titles through its recently established Asian Film Fund. The first film produced with these resources, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM, opens this Friday.
SHANGHAI will be directed by Mikael Hafstrom (1408) and will reunite him with John Cusack. It'll also star Gong Li and Ken Watanabe. The story is set in 1941 China - it shoots in May for a Christmas release (wanna bet that release date changes?)
SEVEN SAMURAI will roll later this year for release sometime next year - no director has been announced yet. This is a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film, which later inspired THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and the Roger Corman-produced BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS among other titles. BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS rocked; I'm still in love with that titty ship.
Is it any surprise? Hollywood is pumping out more and more remakes every year because their isn't an original idea left in any of these idiot producers' heads. That, and the almighty dollar sign is ever present in the eyes of Hollywood. People will go and see this movie and probably not realize that Kurosawa made this movie 50 years ago, but better.
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I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you.....stranger.
Seven Samurai is one of my all time favorite movies. Very bad idea, but nothing has never stopped Hollywood from re-making movies. I only hope they get Ken Watanabe and Henry Sanada to star.
I dunno, I could take or leave the remake. If I don't like it, the original will always exist.
I could imagine a rather fun remake with people like Watanabe, Kitano, Shiro Mifune, and the fella's from Yoji Yamada's "Samurai Trilogy". That'd be somethin'!
Seven Samurai has been remade dozens of times under many different titles. The Magnificent Seven is the most obvious one. A Bugs Life and The Three Amigo's follow.
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Apr 16th, 2008 07:27 PM
