'Rashomon' in new Light
L.A.-based company to remake Kurosawa classic
Harbor Light partners Edwin Marshall and Stuart Calcote obtained the rights after lengthy negotiations with Kurosawa Prods., helmed by the director's son, Hisao Kurosawa.
Marshall and Calcote are developing the film as a contemporary thriller. Working title is "Rashomon: Where Truth Lies."
Harbor Light expects to develop the project and begin pre-production by year's end and principal photography in 2002. As yet no screenwriter or director is attached to the film, which Marshall and Calcote will produce.
Pic, likely budgeted in the $40 million range, will be bank-financed and through revenues from international pre-sales to key territories. Kurosawa Prods. will be creatively involved with the project and is expected to take some form of production credit on the film.
The original "Rashomon," which made Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune an international star, was Kurosawa's first international hit, winning in the Venice Film Festival in 1951 and launching the world's interest in Japanese film. Pic won the foreign-language film Oscar the same year.
Set in 9th century Kyoto, "Rashomon" is the story of a nobleman's bride who is raped by a bandit. The nobleman is murdered, or possibly committed suicide. This double crime is acted out four times, in the versions of the three participants -- the bandit, the woman, and the husband, each giving an account that increases the prestige of his conduct -- and in the version of the woodcutter who witnessed the episode.
"Rashomon" has already inspired two U.S. remakes. The first was a 1960 feature-length TV production starring Ricardo Montalban for director Sidney Lumet and WNTA TV.
"The Outrage" (1964), by director Martin Ritt, starred Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom and William Shatner in a Westernization of the original. Film was also adapted as a Broadway play starring Rod Steiger.
Kurosawa's films have spawned many remakes, including "The Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo." MGM remade "The Seven Samurai" in 1960 as the hit "The Magnificent Seven." Sergio Leone remade "Yojimbo" as "A Fist Full of Dollars."
Harbor Light Entertainment was formed last year with the goal of making three pictures in the $20 million-$40 million range in the next five years.
"The rights to remake this classic film, which has influenced filmmakers all over the world, have never been granted by either Akira Kurosawa or his heirs, who have owned them since the master's death in 1998," said Marshall and Calcote. "We are thrilled and privileged to be the ones to take on this dream-come-true task.
"This is the consummate actors' project. Three strong male leads and one particularly strong female lead are required. We expect and have already received many inquiries from several talent representatives about this project."
