Hey folks, Harry here... Seems that Darren Aronofsky, with the help of Paramount and Mutual Film, have secured the rights to Kazuo Koike's legendary LONE WOLF AND CUB graphic novels.
Most Film Geeks worth their weight in salt, are diehard lovers of the exploits of Ogami Itto and the chronicler of his tale... little Sugito. The 6 film series by Kenji Misumi, Buichi Saito and Yoshiyuki Kuroda... well, it is a series of legend. Watching Tomisaburo create Ogami Itto over those 6 films is one of the great film series created.
However, I'd say most Americans are most familiar with LONE WOLF & CUB through the Sam Mendes directed adaptation of Max Allan Collins' gangster version of Kazuo Koike's original Samurai epic with ROAD TO PERDITION. And like Sam Mendes, it seems that Darren Aronofsky isn't planning on making a Samurai epic.
"Koike's samurai tale is expected to be contemporized by Aronofsky and his Protozoa partner Eric Watson, who'll produce." -- Michael Fleming, Variety
We broke that Aronofsky was seeking the rights on this project back in April, and if he decides to do a more "contemporized" version of the tale... which I'm assuming would be more contemorary than 30's Chicago... then I fully support it as, frankly, I can see no earthly reason to think you could make a better faithful adaptation of the material than those original epic 6 films from Japan in the early seventies. I have my Region 3 DVDs of that series and they are held in a place of honor here at home. None can rule so mightily as Ogami Itto! It'll be interesting to see what Aronofsky has planned for the story.
