Last week Sega and Ryū ga Gotoku Studio announced that they were teaming up with 1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep Content to produce a live-action film based on the popular Yakuza series of video games.
This Yakuza live-action movie adaptation still hasn't signed any writers, nor does it have a director attached to it, but Sega did confirm that the movie is being produced by Dark series Producer Erik Barmack, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Producers Roberto Grande and Joshua Long.
<meta charset="UTF-8">Other than the information shared above, not much else was revealed, but this was more than enough to get fans of the Yakuza series excited. Obviously, there were some fans who were concerned about the series being made into a movie; fair enough, considering tht video game movies often miss the mark.
Fans of the series shouldn't worry about the quality of the movie, as a recent interview with Yakuza series Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi reveals that the project will likely do the series justice.
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"We had an offer from the West, and a Yakuza movie is now underway in Hollywood,” revealed Nagoshi during an interview with IGN. "In a case like this, usually you have the side that wants to (license the IP) and the side that owns the IP, and a deal tends to be done as business. But in this case, I made it clear from the beginning that if the content itself was no good and I didn't agree with it, then I would not want to do it, and I’ve been very upfront about it."
Nagoshi adds that "I've told them that it will only proceed if it’s really good. So it's a bit of a different arrangement than the standard (licensing) alliance. I don't think [a Yakuza movie] is something that needs to be done for the sake of it, so it can only happen if it’s going to be good."
So, there you have it. The Yakuza live-action movie has only been greenlit because Toshihiro Nagoshi himself gave it his seal of approval, and that is exactly the kind of news that fans of the critically acclaimed Yakuza series have been wanting to hear. Personally, I can't wait to hear more about the project.
