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James Wong to Remake Manga-Based Thriller Neighbor No. 13

posted on by Egan Loo
Final Destination/Dragonball helmer to write film based on Santa Inoue story

According to The Hollywood Reporter trade newspaper, James Wong will write and direct a remake of Yasuo Inoue's manga-based thriller film The Neighbor No. Thirteen (Rinjin 13-gō) for Distant Horizon. The new movie will start filming this year and will open in Fall of 2011.

Santa Inoue (Tokyo Tribes) created the original psychological horror manga about Jūzō Murasaki, a man whose schizophrenic alter ego (Jūzō-gō or Number 13) is reawakened when his former childhood bully becomes his new boss. Wong told The Hollywood Reporter that his team "found a very unique way to frame the story and bring a heroic twist to it that is fresh and surprising and will take audiences on a very thrilling journey."

Wong wrote episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, X-Files, Millennium, and The Lone Gunman before creating the Final Destination film franchise, for which he directed the first and third installments. He then directed The One film with Jet Li and Dragonball: Evolution, the film loosely based on Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga.

Distant Horizon acquired the adaptation rights from Nikkatsu, and the company's president Anant Singh (Pulse) is producing the remake with Brian Cox (Pulse) and executive producer Richard Guardian (Lightning Entertainment). The South African movie company has been developing the project since at least 2007, and it has been developing a live-action version of the Kite video anime as well.

Media Blasters released the Japanese live-action film version of The Neighbor No. Thirteen in North America. Tokyopop published Santa Inoue's Tokyo Tribes manga.

[Via indieWire, Dread Central]


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