Live Action Anime

Thanks go to ANN for this item of news.

It seems that Hiroya Oku’s ultraviolent science-fiction/action manga Gantz will be getting a Japanese adaptation into a pair of live-action movies. The film will be directed by Shinsuke Sato (The Princess Blade), and will star Kazunari Ninomiya (Letters from Iwo Jima) and Ken’ichi Matsuyama (The Legend of Kamui). The filming will begin next month and is expected to end in April; the release dates for the two films are projected as winter and spring of 2011 respectively.

The films are to be written by Yusuke Watanabe (the 20th Century Boys trilogy), produced by Takahiro Sato (Death Note; 20th Century Boys), and will have their visuall effects work done by Digital Frontier (Appleseed).

The story of the manga follows Kei Kurono (to be portrayed by Ninoyima), a college student who is reanimated along with his friend Masaru Kato (Matsuyama) after a fatal accident. The two are subsequently thrust into a series of bloody, deadly battles according to the whims of the same enigmatic entity responsible for their revival. The manga has thus far sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

Given the big names attached to these films and the popularity of the source material, one could hazard a guess that these films could succeed the 20th Century Boys trilogy as the next big blockbuster property in Japan. At still over a year away, we can but wait and watch. Young Jump have also created a site dedicated to the films here.

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