Tse and David Hayter (X-Men, The Scorpion King) co-wrote the live-action film adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen graphic novel. Tse and Watchmen director Zack Snyder also co-wrote the Tales of the Black Freighter animated video based on Watchmen’s “comic-within-a-comic” story. Tse has since written a script for Warner Brothers’ planned new film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man classic short story anthology. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tse is scripting a proposed film version of John Twelve Hawks’ Fourth Realm trilogy of science-fiction novels.

Source: Anime News Network, Hollywood Reporter

Shock Till You Drop has posted an interview with Laeta Kalogribis, the current screenwriter for Steven Spielberg’s planned live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell cyber-police manga. Kalogridis was once also hired by James Cameron to script his planned adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) manga. She is also an executive producer and screenwriter on Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and an executive producer on Cameron’s Avatar.

Kalogribis confirms that she is is still working on the draft of the script for Ghost in the Shell. When asked if Steven Spielberg came to her to adapt the manga, she said, “Dreamworks has the material and I have loved it for years and years and years. They contacted me about it when they found out that I was interested. I mean, there’s just no other property quite like it.” She also added, the film “could actually be three two-hour movies, which is what I would vote for.”

In a separate development,MTV.com posted a clip from a video interview with Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio regarding his next project. When asked if DiCaprio’s next project will be the live-action film adaptation of  Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga or Twilight Zone, DiCaprio said, “You know, you never want to say anything is going to happen in this town, because everything gets thrown out the window one day and is green-lit the next.”

DiCaprio explained why neither films are his top priority right now, saying, “It’s all about the material at the end of the day, that’s why (Shutter Island) is something of a godsend. When you get good material, you have to jump on it and try to make it as best you can, because it is few and far between.”

Last week the New York Magazine’s Vulture blog reported that the Hughes brothers — the directors behind Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, From Hell, and The Book of Eli — are negotiating with the Warner Brothers movie studio to direct the film. Sometime this week and official statement from Warner Brothers will be made regarding to the Huges brothers directing Akria.

Source: Anime News Network

Well it looks like director James Cameron is planning on adapting Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) manga after he makes the sequel to the blockbuster Avatar. That’s what Producer Jon Landau told the MTV Splash Page website. He also explained how director Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hobbit) was the one who brought the manga to Cameron’s and his attention.

Landau also explained how it was screenwriter Laeta Kalogribis (Shutter Island, Ghost in the Shell) that expanded Camerons and his own awareness of the manga after she was brought onboard. Cameron and Landau were familiar with one of the manga volumes and the anime, but Kalogribis “opened us up to the other nine books that exist, and how rich that world is.”

As a result, Cameron decided to make Avatar first. Landau added, “We really wanted to take our time in developing a large arc-ing story that really encompasses the whole world [of Battle Angel Alita]. We were very close to doing that movie before we did Avatar, and I think you’ll see that resurface. That’s a story in our minds about: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to fall in love? Are you human if you have a heart? Are you human if you have a mind? Or are you human if you just have a body? It’s a journey of self-discovery for a young girl.”

Source: Anime News Network

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Aviator) is producing the planned live-action film adaptation through his Appian Way production company. Mad Chance producer Andrew Lazar (Jonah Hex, Space Cowboys) said at Comic-Con International in August that the live-action project “is a real priority project for Warner Brothers” but is not likely to go into production before the third quarter of 2010 for a 2011 release. Otomo is an executive producer and consultant on the project.

The ShockTillYouDrop.com website reports that the release date for the live action movie adaptation of Min-Woo Hyung’s Priest horror manhwa has been pushed back from August 27, 2010 to January 14, 2011. The website reports that the reason for the change is so the movie can be converted into 3D.

The film’s release date had originally been pushed up from October 1, 2010 to August 27 to fill the void when Resident Evil: Afterlife movie moved from August 27, 2010, to January 14, 2011. Resident Evil: Afterlife is now slated for September 10, 2010.

Director Scott Charles Stewart told the Ain’t It Cool News in January that there will also be an R-rated “2D animated prologue to the film.” The film stars Paul Bettany(A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, The Da Vinci Code), Cam Gigandet(Twilight, The O.C.), Maggie Q (Mission: Impossible III, Live Free or Die Hard, King of Fighters), Karl Urban (Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, The Bourne Supremacy), Stephen Moyer (True Blood, The Starter Wife), and Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).

Tokyopop released the original manhwa in North America. The publisher had announced, before the movie’s latest date move, that it would publish the original Priest: Purgatory graphic novel to bridge the manhwa and the live-action movie adaptation in 2010.

The manhwa tells the story of an expert in ancient languages who accidentally resurrects an angel from Hell, Temozareal. The man is forced to sell his soul to the Devil in a attempt to correct his mistake. Cory Goodman (The Brood) wrote the movie adaptation’s script. According to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, the film version “is set in a world ravaged by war between man and vampire.”

The websites MoviesOnline.ca and ScreenRant.com have both posted interviews with Laeta Kalogridis, the current screenwriter for Dreamworks’ and Steven Spielberg’s planned live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s cyber-police manga Ghost in the Shell. Kalogridis was once also hired by James Cameron to script his planned adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s Battle Angel Alita manga. She is also an executive producer and screenwriter on Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and an executive producer on Cameron’s Avatar.

In the interviews, Kalogridis reiterated that the script for the live-action Ghost in the Shell will be based on Shirow’s original manga and not Production I.G and Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 animated movie adaptation. Like the manga, Kalogridis said the upcoming movie will have “a lot of action.”

However, as a nod to Oshii’s anime film adaptations, Kalogridis also added, “there’s still going to be a lot of atmosphere – [The movie] is about vast possibilities – all of this technology, the Internet – it’s about the limitless possibilities of this technology.”

Kalogridis also commented on a possible trend of more live-action adaptations of anime and manga in Hollywood, saying “I think anime and manga are slowly becoming a big part of our mythos, I think yes, they’re sort of a natural fit for films.”

The American arm of the manga’s original Japanese publisher Kodansha is reprinting the manga after Dark Horse Comics had the license. Kodansha also launched two new manga series based on the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television anime series in December.

For more discussion on this topic, head over to the forums.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z8z6Vd3X3Q

watch?v=H4vP7wI8Vm8

The Japan Times news website posted an interview with director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers, Patlabor) on Friday regarding his new live-action film Assault Girls, which premiered in Japan on Saturday, December 19. This film is Oshii’s first live-action feature film since 2001’s Avalon.

The science-fiction story is set on a post-apocalyptic desert battlefield where giant monsters named “Suna Kujira” (literally, sand whales) roam. Three beautiful female hunters — all of whom wield assault rifles and other powerful weapons — engage in battle with the monsters, including the biggest of them all, the Madara Suna Kujira (spotted sand whale). Meisa Kuroki (Vexille – 2077 Isolation of Japan, Crows Zero), Rinko Kikuchi (The Sky Crawlers, Babel), and Hinako Saeki (Shin-Onna Tachiguishi Retsuden, Rasen) play the three hunters Gray, Lucifer, and Colonel.

In the interview, Oshii said he did not have a master plan for the movie, and added that the process of assembling the different parts together was more accumulative. “While I’m making one film, I’m thinking about how to make another, even while on the set,” Oshii said. “I remember [those ideas] and when I get the next chance [to make a film], I use them, with the same characters and the same world.”

Oshii said he made the film to create a fantasy film of the type that is rarely made in Japan. “This sort of fantasy world is often found in Japanese games and anime, but that’s about it,” he said. He explains that this is why his film may have a more widespread appeal: the film has a unique setting and most of the dialogue is in English.

Oshii also commented that he makes films with modest budgets (the budget for Assault Girls was 100 million yen or about US$1.1 million), because “a director’s job is to spend other people’s money to make a film. But that’s not something I’m really suited for. I want to do everything the way I like, so I have no choice but to work with fairly low budgets.”

He also said he prefers to make movies quickly, because while working on one film, he gets ideas for many other films.

Oshii also confirmed that he plans to make another animated movie starting next spring. He also commented on the difference between making a live-action film and making an anime. “Animation is an accumulative process, taking one step at a time, like laying bricks,” Oshii said. “You decide on a plan, lay the foundation, then take out your blueprint, look at it and start building. But with a live-action film, you don’t know what you really have until you make it. I find that interesting. It’s not that one is better than the other. For me it’s better to do both.”

Oshii had previously written and directed a live-action Assault Girl: Kentucky no Hinako short with Saeki for his Shin-Onna Tachiguishi Retsuden (The Women of Fast Food) film anthology. He then directed the live-action Assault Girl 2 short with Kikuchi for another film anthology, Kiru ~ KILL. At The Sky Crawlers’ DVD/Blu-ray Disc release event in March, Oshii said that he has plans for two live-action feature films starting this year, as well as one anime film in the 2011 timeframe. In October, Oshii said that he received an inquiry regarding a Hollywood remake of Assault Girls before the film was even finished.

Source: The Japan Times via Twitch Film

He had announced earlier in the year at Anime Expo that his company would be pursuing live action projects based on the Kakurenbo horror anime and a Kazuo Koike work as well.

However he also confirmed that the live action Cowboy Bebop film will remain a 3 Arts Entertainment project.

Source: Anime News Network