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Live-Action Terraformars Film to Open on April 29

This year's 49th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump magazine is announcing on Thursday that the live-action film adaptation of Kenichi Tachibana and Yū Sasuga's Terraformars science-fiction manga will open in Japan on April 29, during the Golden Week holidays. The issue features interviews with the main cast members and director Takashi Miike.

The magazine's 50th issue will feature an "important announcement" about Terraformars on November 12. The 49th issue is also revealing that the original manga series will have 14 million copies in circulation when the 15th volume ships in Japan on November 19 (the scan pictured above right that states 13 million copies in print is from a different page in the magazine, and doesn't take into account the upcoming 15th volume). The next chapter of Terraformars will feature a color opening page in the next issue.

The film's previously revealed cast includes:

Hideaki Itō (Princess Blade, Onmyoji, Umizaru, Sukiyaki Western Django, Lesson of the Evil) will play the lead role of Shōkichi Komachi.

Emi Takei (live-action Rurouni Kenshin's Kaoru, Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu's Tsubaki, Ai to Makoto's Ai, Clover's Saya) stars as the heroine Nanao Akita.

Takayuki Yamada (Densha Otoko, Bakuman., H2: Kimi to Ita Hibi) as Ichirō Hiruma

Shun Oguri (Lupin III, Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie - Conqueror of Shamballa, Detective Conan) as Kō Honda

Kane Kosugi (Street Fighter Alpha, Choy Lee Fut, Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear) as God Lee

Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, Babel, The Sky Crawlers) as Asuka Moriki, based on Victoria Wood

Masaya Kato (Crying Freeman, 1998 Godzilla, Unfair) as Keisuke Dōjima, based on Donatello K. Davis

Eiko Koike (20th Century Boys, Seppun, Nasu: Summer in Andalusia) as Mina Ōbari, based on Zhang Ming-Ming

Mariko Shinoda (former AKB48 idol, Ouran High School Host Club) as Sorae Ōsako, based on Jaina Eisenstein

Kenichi Takitō (Ryōmaden, Climber's High) as Shunji Tezuka, based on Tejas Viji

Rina Ōta (The Next Generation -Patlabor-, Princess Jellyfish) as Maria Renjō, based on Maria Viren

Rila Fukushima (The Wolverine, Arrow, Game of Thrones) as the new, original character Sakakibara

The non-Japanese team members in the original manga have had their names and part of their characters changed. For example, the Thai character Thien is now Jin Mutō, as played by former NEWS band member Tomohisa Yamashita (a.k.a. "Yamapi" from Kurosagi, Ikebukuro West Gate Park, Ashita no Joe).

Pre-production for the film took two years, and filming began in mid-May. Filming then moved in August to Iceland. It will be the first time that a Japanese film is shot on location there. The film will finish production next February.

Prolific director Takashi Miike (live-action films of Ichi the Killer, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Yatterman, As the Gods Will, Crows Zero, Mogura no Uta) is helming the project, and Kazuki Nakashima (Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill) wrote the screenplay.

Tachibana and Sasuga launched the original Terra Formars manga in 2011, and Shueisha will publish the 15th volume on November 19. Viz Media is releasing the manga in North America, and it describes the story:

In the late 26th century, overpopulation on Earth is reaching the breaking point, and humanity must find new frontiers. The terraforming of Mars has taken centuries, but is now complete. The colonization of Mars by humanity is an epoch-making event, but an unintended side effect of the terraforming process unleashes a horror no one could ever have imagined...

After humanity's first manned mission to the Red Planet was lost, a second expedition arrives. The explorers prepare to exterminate the cockroaches that were used to transform the Martian environment. They are shocked to discover that the insects have mutated into giant, aggressive humanoids with one overriding goal: exterminate the humans! But this crew of explorers has each undergone the "Bugs Procedure, " terrifying experimental surgery designed to make them more than human...

The television anime adapting the Annex 1 arc of the manga premiered in September 2014, and Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired. The companion original video anime (OVA) project adapts the Bugs 2 arc on discs bundled with the 10th and 11th manga volumes. The Annex 1 arc takes place 20 years after the Bugs 2 arc.