Breath a sigh of relief, plans for a "Lone Wolf and Cub" remake have been shelved

by Chris MaGee

We've had to deal with an endless stream of reports of upcoming Hollywood remakes of our beloved films in the past little while. "Akira", "Rashomon", "Detroit Metal City", "High and Low", there have been rumours, some founded some not, about all of these getting sub par English-language remakes (okay the "High and Low" remake actually sounds like it might be good), so this report posted at Anime News Network this morning will come as a welcome relief to remake weary Japanese film: the palns for an English-language "Lone Wolf and Cub" remake have been shelved.

Originally "Requiem for a Dream" and "The Wrestler" director Darren Aronofsky had wanted to adapt Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's original "Lone Wolf and Cub" manga into a big budget Hollywood film, but according to Aronofsky "The rights from Japan were never cleared. They tried for a while. I don't think it's getting out of there anytime soon."

Now granted if you were planning to remake a classic story like "Lone Wolf and Cub" it'd be much safer in the hands of someone like Darren Aronofsky than say a Brett Ratner or a Paul W.S. Anderson, but seeing that the story of the wandering samurai Ogami Ittō and his little son Daigoro had already been used recently as the inspiration behind the 2002 Sam Mendes gangster film "Road to Perdition" I think it would be best to just give "Lone Wolf and Cub" a bit of a breather for now, don't you?