In the past New Line purchased the rights to make the animated show into a live-action film. The plan was to have Brett Ratner produce and direct the feature. Nothing ever materialized and the rights reverted back to Cartoon Network.
For anyone not familiar with the show, every episode began with the following quotation,
"Long ago in a distant land, I, Aku, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil! But a foolish Samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung him into the future, where my evil is law! Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is Aku!"
The Samurai warrior with the magic sword is Jack. He is a prince that trained to become a Samurai once his father's empire was destroyed by Aku, a demon. As it says in the quotation, Jack wasn't able to land the final blow to defeat Aku because the demon created a time portal and tossed Jack into the future. A Utopian future run by the now extremely powerful Aku, and his robot minions. This future that is inhabited by alien creatures, also is highly advanced technologically, yet also has supernatural elements throughout.
The show was nominated for multiple Emmys, and even spawned a comic book and a video game. The show was very clever with it's violence, and avoided problems with the censors by having Samurai Jack battling robots and aliens. Even though scenes were graphic at times, there was no blood and guts. His enemies instead spilled oil if the victims were robots, or slime if they were aliens.
What follows is an excerpt from The Hollywood Reporter's interview.
Singh told The Hollywood Reporter he has little interest in comic book movies but “I love Samurai Jack. I would love to direct that.” He said it’s the epic style, pace and art that he admires.
“It’s brilliant. The speed, it embraces where it comes from. I find that comic strip films are halfway grounded. They don’t play my chord. But I love Samurai Jack. I love the animation," he said.
A live-action version of Jack was actually set up at New Line in the early 2000s, with man-in-the-news Brett Ratner attached to direct and produce, but the rights have since reverted back to Cartoon Network.
“Have them contact me,” Singh said. You hear that, CN execs?
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