You haven't made it in Hollywood till you've had Samuel L. Jackosn point a gun at your head. Well, Callan McAuliffe can consider himself firmly arrived. On speaking about working on Kite, McAuliffe quickly addressed the elepahnt in the room, namely the very NSFW content and subject matter in the original anime. Said Callan, "I suppose in an effort to make it a little more accessible, it's been toned down a tiny bit, but it is still exceedingly violent and there is a lot of the original material in there. It's definitely not something that young children should watch! It still maintains a lot of the elements that fans will be happy with. There are things it's impossible to get across with live action, such as the expressiveness of the characters, which would be overly theatrical in live action. So it has a more cinematic feel to it."
And on working with Jackson, Callan shared, "There is a level of intimidation that is there whether they're a nice person or not just from the get go. The sense of you knowing them already without them knowing you and you wanting to leave a good impression. When I met him, he was just a really nice guy. He's so into it whenever they called action, but then once they called cut, he was making jokes and just being Samuel L. Jackson."
Kite is expected to arrive in theaters in 2014.
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| "Samuel L. Jackson stars in Ralph Ziman's remake of Yasuomi Umetsu’s Japanese OVA, Kite. The live-action film stars nineteen-year-old India Eisley (Underworld: Awakening, Maleficent) as Sawa, sixty-four-year-old Samuel L. Jackson (The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as Karl Aker (Akai) and eighteen-year-old Callan McAuliffe (The Great Gatsby) as Oburi. If you've seen the original OVA, you know why the ages are important here. The project was very nearly shelved when David R. Ellis (Snakes On A Plane) passed away back in February but Ralph Ziman (Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema ) quickly stepped in to keep the project moving. "Kite, is described as a character-driven action film that charts the story of Sawa (Eisley), a young woman living in a failed state after the financial collapse, where a corrupt security force profits on the trafficking of young women. When Sawa's policeman father is killed, she vows to track the murderer down with the help of his ex-partner, Karl Aker (Jackson)." |