DreamWorks has scooped up the rights to remake the J-horror sensation Yomigaeri (Resurrection) from the Tokyo Broadcasting System.
As with many J-horror films Yomigaeri got its start as a novel. Its narrative centers on a government bureaucrat taking a trip to a rural town to do some snooping on a hapless child who, after disappearing for 60 years, returns to his mother not having aged a day since the date of his fateful vanishing.
Gladiator scribe William Nicholson will pen the rehash, with an eye toward getting production off the ground by the end of the year; however, no word on a director or stars at this early stage in the game, so don’t hold your breath expecting it to meet that deadline. More often than not, the script will go through a number of screen scribes before, or if, it makes its way to a director that has a fresh take on the material.
This acquisition also marks the second J-horror film DreamWorks has purchased within the last couple of months. Ghost in the Shell, a futuristic police extravaganza, being the first, which is being geared as a 3-D live-action feature.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised the studios are still developing J-horror remakes, especially when you consider remakes like One Missed Call and Shutter didn’t live up to projected box-office expectations. I don’t know when studios are going to realize when they plug up their development slates with more-of-the-same audiences quickly tire and move on. Hence the failures of those previously mentioned.
I haven’t seen the original Yomigaeri, so I can’t say whether or not it could benefit from an American overhaul. Either way, I just hope the remake turns out good…if it gets made.