Steven Seagal Is To 'Rescue' 'The Yakuza'

Steven Seagal has just closed deals to star in a remake of the 1975 thriller "The Yakuza," and as a former Vietnam veteran in "The Rescue." Seagal will be paid $4 million for each film, reports Variety.

"The Yakuza" was originally scripted by Paul Schrader and Robert Towne and directed by Sydney Pollack. It starred Robert Mitchum and merged Japanese lore with the saga of gangsters kidnapping the daughter of an L.A. shipping magnate.

In "The Rescue," Seagal will play a former Vietnam vet who begins exchanging letters with an orphan in Eastern Europe that he's helping out financially. When the letters cease, he heads to Europe to find out what happened to the child.

Both projects are set up at Warner Bros.-based Franchise Pictures.