Tag: Ghost of Tsushima

Posted on in Film News, News

‘Ghost Of Tsushima’ Director Chad Stahelski Shares Promising Update On His Samurai Action Flick: “We Have A Script”

A recent report alluded to movement on Lionsgate’s “Highlander” remake from director Chad Stahelski (“John Wick 1-4”) and starring Henry Cavill (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout”) is leading to a potential early 2024 production start. And it looks like Stahelski’s other big swordplay action flick is getting some traction as well. The filmmaker shared an update of sorts with the folks over at ScreenRant, about his live-action feature film incarnation of the PlayStation/Sucker Punch video game “Ghost of Tsushima.” A game that allows gamers to play as a samurai during a Mongol invasion of Tsushima Island in 1274.

Stahelski was quick to reveal they have a script (unknown if it is shooting ready) and indicates they’ve figured out what the picture will be.

“We have a script, we’re very close to getting our shit together on that, as well. Development is always tricky, it’s studios, it’s strikes, and availabilities, and scouting. You have to will things into existence. I think the two things that I am closest and most interested in are ‘Highlander’ and ‘Ghost of Tsushima.’ Both amazing, amazing properties, the story of Ghost is, also, one of my favorite properties of all time,” Stahelski told ScreenRant of the current status of the samurai flick’s script.

Depending on his schedule for “Highlander” there is a strong possibility that “Ghost of Tsushima” could be ready to go in front of cameras by 2025-2026.

Here is the game’s official logline via PlayStation:

Tsushima is on the brink of destruction. In the wake of a crushing defeat at the hands of ruthless Mongol invaders, noble samurai Jin Sakai must sacrifice everything to protect what’s left of his home and people. As he embarks on an epic adventure for the freedom of Tsushima, he must set aside samurai traditions, embrace unconventional methods, and forge a new path—the path of the Ghost.

In the past, the director has given the impression they’ll try to do a version with subtitles and actors speaking Japanese, which likely means they’ll be casting mostly authentic actors for the key roles and could give a huge boost to the career of whoever lands the lead role of Jin Sakai. That role had been previously played by Japanese-American actor Daisuke Tsuji (“Invasion”) for the video game and we wouldn’t be all that shocked if he ended up getting an offer to reprise the part.

SOURCE: SCREEN RANT

Posted on in Features, Film News

Keanu Reeves Down To Make ‘John Wick 5’ According To Chad Stahelski But The Director Needs A Good Idea/Thread To Avoid Treating The Audience “Like Idiots”

**** WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ‘JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4’****

Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski have put together quite an entertaining group of action films with the four installments of the “John Wick” franchise. Earlier in the year, “John Wick 4” ended up becoming the highest-grossing film in the batch which is likely why it’s a bit puzzling why the team decided to end “Chapter 4” with the way they did. If you haven’t seen the film, there is a duel in Paris that is assumed to have left John dead from multiple gunshot wounds. While we do see Winston looking down at John’s grave, we don’t actually see the master assassin die on camera, or his body laid to rest for that matter. Potentially, this could have been a constructed way to both end the films there or leave a hypothetical window open for Wick’s “resurrection” in a couple of years by stating the coffin was empty with Wick going off to rest/recover in peace away from The High Table after settling his debt to them.

Despite earlier plans to shoot both “John Wick 4” and “John Wick 5” back-to-back in Germany, they ultimately only made one film and gave everyone involved an out if they truly wanted it. Stahelski recently spoke about the sequel to Josh Horowitz on his podcast (Horowitz suggests we follow Wick into the afterlife/purgatory), Happy Sad Confused, where it was explained that while Keanu Reeves would happily make another one, the director is a bit more apprehensive about it and says waiting for a good reason/idea before jumping into production is key. Citing his worry that it could be seen as treating the loyal audience like idiots for doing a death fake-out.

“If you asked [Keanu] right now, he’d say ‘fuck yeah.’ But, then he’d look and go ‘Well, what is it? I have no fucking clue.’ Look man, we’re going to do our other stuff for a little bit but if…an idea hit me within 30 seconds I’d be on the phone with Keanu and we’d be riffing. We have a lot of set pieces. We have a lot of ideas that didn’t go or we didn’t do. I have no doubt we’ve come up with a lot of great [action} pieces, its just what’s the main thread?…But if we found that moment and found that thread, yeah. I don’t think you’d find anyone invovled with ‘John Wick’ that wouldn’t want to do another one,” the director told Horowitz.

Stahelski still has his own concerns about rushing into it as he brings up the ambiguity of the western “Shane,” where the audience isn’t exactly sure if the hero actually has died, but it’s assumed he has. While also harping on the fact they haven’t cracked a great idea for that return and likely would hinge on that aspect before moving forward.

“I don’t think we bring John Wick back without a real reason. It can’t just be a hook, it’s got to draw people back in. Cause I think most of the audience would like to see Keanu back they just don’t want to be treated like they’re idiots. They don’t want to be treated like ‘Gimmie your fourteen bucks and we’ll bring back the dude to shoot people in the head.’ I’m part of the audience and I would feel ripped off if I did something like that. None of us are opposed to doing five but we just don’t know how to do it, we’re not that smart.”

Interestingly enough, the upcoming spinoff film “Ballerina” starring Ana de Armas and helmed by Len Wiseman (“Underworld”) sidesteps this issue as it takes place between the end of “John Wick 3” and the start of “John Wick 4” allowing for characters like Charon and Wick to appear despite their on-screen deaths (many of us are still mourning Lance Riddick’s tragic off-screen death). There could be room to go back into John’s past with the Ruska Roma and explore those events, even if that means hiring a younger actor to fill Keanu’s shoes. What “John Wick 5” ends up looking like might depend heavily on how audiences receive things like “Ballerina” and potentially other spinoffs like the one teased with the end credit scene telegraphing an Akira-centric movie that possibly sees her attempt revenge against Caine for killing her father in Osaka.

It’s also worth pointing out that “other stuff” Stahelski mentions is an ever-growing number of unmade film projects he’s previously attached himself to over the years that he wants to make before tackling a “John Wick 5.” Some of those that standouts include a reboot of the “Highlander” franchise with British actor Henry Cavill still attached for a key role, the “Rainbow Six” movie at Paramount that would see Michael B. Jordan reprise the role of C.I.A. operator John Clark, and another ambitious project, a feature film adaptation of the samurai PlayStation video game, “Ghost of Tsushima.” The latter would see an all-Asian cast with the hopes that it could be done mainly in the Japanese language.

You can watch/listen to that full interview below.

SOURCE: HAPPY SAD CONFUSED PODCAST

Posted on in Film News, News

‘Highlander’ Reboot: Chad Stahelski Says Henry Cavill Still Attached & Aims To Build Up To The Gathering Of Immortals With World-Building

Director Chad Stahelski has been doing wonders for the action film community with a quadrilogy of superb films with the “John Wick” franchise starring Canadian action star Keanu Reeves. He’s coming off the massive success of “John Wick: Chapter 4” not only making coins at the box office but also being hailed as a great action film by audiences and critics alike. However, that’s not the only project brewing over at Lionsgate with the filmmaker.

While speaking with Josh Horowitz on his podcast, Happy Sad Confused (See below) he reveals that his long-in-development reboot of the “Highlander” franchise is not only still in the works at Lionsgate but actor Henry Cavill (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” “The Witcher”) is indeed still attached for an unnamed role in the sci-fi adventure pic.

“I think we have some very good elements now. The trick is when you have the tagline ‘there can only be one’, you can’t just kill everybody the first time. I’ll say it for you first, our story engages a lot of the same characters and stuff like that, but we’ve also brought in elements of all the TV shows, and we’re trying to do a bit of a prequel, a setup to The Gathering, so we have room to grow the property.”

If you’re not familiar with the “Highlander” films or shows, it focuses on a group of immortals that seek each other out to fight for “the prize” (being granted morality to live a regular life) and others are less interested in that by killing as many fellow immortals as they can to boost their powers/abilities with each encounter with The Quickening. When the power of a killed immortal is applied to another immortal via lightning strikes, making them more powerful and lengthening their immortality.

The director has previously talked up the idea of combining the film and television mythology, which they have done with the latter sequels. Taking a crack at focusing on world-building and then going into The Gathering, where immortals are steered towards each other to battle to the death until one. The main crux of the franchise line is: “There can be only one.” A troublesome aspect of the first film is that it ends with Connor winning the prize and leading to bizarre aspects to bring back other immortals from the past or other planets for subsequent sequels sort of shooting themselves in the foot isn’t something that Stahelski is interested in here with his incarnation.

Cavill, for his part, had recently exited the Netflix fantasy series “The Witcher” where you guessed it, he swung a sword for multiple seasons. It’s still unclear if Cavill would play hero or mentor in the reboot, but it’s starting to sound like we could be seeing both Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert’s role) and Duncan MacLeod (the main character from the first television series) in this reboot. Tapping into the duo of the “Scottish” cousins could be a good way to move past the alien stuff that was introduced in “Highlander II: The Quickening” and try to focus more on immortals simply happening among the human population, not to mention their human observers, The Watchers.

Sadly, this isn’t the only film in the works for Stahelski as he is also looking to make a live-action film at Sony Pictures based on the hit samurai video game “Ghost of Tsushima,” a sequel in the John Clark franchise with “Rainbow Six” starring Michael B. Jordan in the follow-up to “Without Remorse,” a Netflix feature film based on the pulp novels “Black Samurai,” an urban fantasy film called “Arcana” from the writers of “Predators,” and is hypothetically open to the idea of returning for “John Wick 5” if they come up with the right idea for it.

We’ll have to continue to be patient about future updates concerning “Highlander.”

SOURCE: HAPPY SAD CONFUSED PODCAST

Posted on in Film News, News

‘Shibumi’: Warner Bros. & ‘John Wick’ Franchise Director Chad Stahelski Team For Period Assassin Thriller

Director Chad Stahelski is currently in production on John Wick: Chapter 4 in Germany, but the action director isn’t slowing down as he’s attached to yet another project. Deadline reports that Warner Bros. and Stahhelski are teaming to develop a feature film adaptation of Trevanian’s 1979 novel Shibumi.

“Nicholai Hel is the world’s most wanted man. Born in Shanghai during the chaos of World War I, he is the son of an aristocratic Russian mother and a mysterious German father and is the protégé of a Japanese Go master. Hel survived the destruction of Hiroshima to emerge as the world’s most artful lover and its most accomplished—and well-paid—assassin. Hel is a genius, a mystic, and a master of language and culture, and his secret is his determination to attain a rare kind of personal excellence, a state of effortless perfection known only as shibumi.”

“Now living in an isolated mountain fortress with his exquisite mistress, Hel is unwillingly drawn back into the life he’d tried to leave behind when a beautiful young stranger arrives at his door, seeking help and refuge. It soon becomes clear that Hel is being tracked by his most sinister enemy—a supermonolith of international espionage known only as the Mother Company. The battle lines are drawn: ruthless power and corruption on one side, and on the other . . . shibumi.”

The book made a brief cameo in the original John Wick as the airport security guard is spotted reading it, the story likely had a direct influence on the world of high-end assassins inhabited by John Wick and could be an excellent follow-up once Stahelski completes John Wick: Chapter 5, said to be the final installment.

A previous incarnation of Shibumi had Keanu Reeves attached, but no actors are currently involved with it. Its period setting could help separate it from the more modern John Wick films.

Interestingly enough, American author Don Winslow penned another Nicholai Hel book called Satori and could give Warner Bros. source material for another film leading to a new franchise.

“It is the fall of 1951, and the Korean War is raging. Twenty-six-year-old Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement at the hands of the Americans. Hel is a master of hoda korosu, or “naked kill,” is fluent in seven languages, and has honed extraordinary “proximity sense”-an extra-awareness of the presence of danger. He has the skills to be the world’s most fearsome assassin and now the CIA needs him.”

“The Americans offer Hel freedom, money, and a neutral passport in exchange for one small service: to go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union’s commissioner to China. It’s almost certainly a suicide mission, but Hel accepts. Now he must survive chaos, violence, suspicion, and betrayal while trying to achieve his ultimate goal of satori-the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world.”

It might be a long time before we ultimately see Shibumi hit the big screen.

John Wick 5 isn’t the only project Stahelski is also involved with as Lionsgate’s Highlander reboot is one of them with Henry Cavill in talks for a lead role, Sony Pictures has assigned him to helm a feature adaptation of their popular samurai video game Ghost of Tsushima, and the New Line Cinema hybrid action movie Classified (called Die Hard meets Indiana Jones).

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in News, Television News

HBO’s ‘Last Of Us’ Series Adds ‘Mindhunter’ Actress Anna Torv

The Last of Us series from HBO has seemingly started shooting in Calgary this month and Variety reports that Australian actress Anna Torv has landed the role of Tess, a smuggler and hardened survivor. The rest of the cast consists of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as well as cast members Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandrige, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlet, Con O’Neill, and Jeffery Pierce.

Torv is likely best known for her work on shows such as Fringe and David Fincher’s Mindhunter.

The Last of Us takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival. 

Craig Mazin (HBO’s “Chernobyl”), Neil Druckmann (“The Last of Us” and “Uncharted” video game franchises), and Carolyn Strauss (HBO’s “Chernobyl” and “Game of Thrones”) are executive producers along with Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan. Written by Mazin and Druckmann, the series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television. PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and Naughty Dog produce.

It will be airing on both HBO and HBO Max.

Pascal is also expected to eventually return for Season 3 of The Mandalorian, which is apparently already shooting shooting in the Los Angeles/Manhattan Beach area. However, it’s unknown when Pedro Pascal will be joining the cast as the shoot for The Last of Us is expected to continue into the fall.

The Last of Us is part of a new wave of video game adaptations based on Sony-owned properties. Tom Holland leads a feature film adaptation of Uncharted and John Wick’s Chad Stahelski is attached to turn Sony’s popular samurai game, Ghost of Tsushima, into a movie as well.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Michael B. Jordan Developing New ‘Superman’ Project At HBO Max That Will Focus On Val-Zod

Posted on in Film News

‘Ghost of Tsushima’: Sony Hires ‘John Wick’ Franchise Director Chad Stahelski To Make A Feature Film

Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions are moving forward with a feature film based on their samurai action-focused video game Ghost of Tsushima and there is word from Deadline that they’ve selected John Wick franchise director Chad Stahelski to make it.

The game is developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and centers around samurai warrior Jin Sakai, the last surviving member of his clan, who must set aside the traditions that have shaped him as a warrior to wage an unconventional war for the freedom of Tsushima.

In 1274, a Mongolian invasion fleet led by Khotun Khan lands on the Japanese island of Tsushima. Realizing that he cannot defeat the Mongols by himself or with traditional samurai fighting tactics, Jin begins scouring the island to recruit allies and learn fighting techniques to aid in his quest to rescue Lord Shimura.

A screenwriter or idea when production would begin wasn’t mention in the report.

There is an expectation that we’ll see an Asian only cast given the setting and era.

However, given the violence involved with the samurai genre, it’s unknown if they’ll be aiming to make this an R-rated project. There is a good chance that with Chad directing that Sony might allow this to become a mature film project.

Chad is set to begin production on John Wick: Chapter 4 this June and has been developing multiple action projects including a Highlander reboot for Lionsgate.

Sony is hoping to mine a bulk of their video game IPs with an Uncharted film starring Spider-Man actor Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg on the way. Along with an HBO series adaptation of The Last of Us starring Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian) as Joel.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed their new God of War games taking place in Norse mythology get a string of R-rated movies too.

SOURCE: DEADLINE