Roy Lee who is popular for producing remakes of popular Asian films like,
The Ring,
The Grudge, and Spike Lee's
Oldboy. He has been linked to a remake of
Battle Royale for years, and as New Line was about to give the green light in 2007, the project came to a screeching halt because of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Battle Royale is based on Koushun Takami's 1999 novel, it was adapted into a film directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It was also turned into a manga series. The story, children are gassed and awake on an island. The 42 children are given food, water, and a random weapon, and told that must kill their classmates until only one survives. They are told they have a time limit, and they wear collars that prevent them from escaping. If they try to escape the collars will explode.
Many people have seen a strong link between
Battle Royale and The Hunger Games. I would suspect that if the later does well in the box office then they won't worry about saturating the market with a similar storyline.
Excerpt from movieweb.com article:
Roy Lee has also been attached to produce a remake of Battle Royale for some time now, although it seems that project isn't moving forward, mainly due to a highly-anticipated upcoming movie.
"The Hunger Games definitely took a lot of wind out of the sails because it definitely has a very similar storyline and so I'm not even sure if before The Hunger Games, any studio would have been able to take the creative risks you need to make the movie right."
About The Author:
I am Jay Jayson, one of the greatest writers and researchers to ever grace the comicbookmovie.com community. If there is a story or a picture hiding on the internet I will find it.