It seems that the GANTZ Hollywood live-action film is going ahead and today, Deadline revealed who will be helming the adaptation of Hiroya Oku‘s popular manga series. Deadline has announced that Overlord (not the anime! The 2018 horror film) director Julius Avery will be directing GANTZ based on a script by Arrow producer Marc Guggenheim with Sony Pictures set to distribute the film, though no date has set date at this stage – the film just got its director after all.
Temple Hill, known for the Twilight series and the adaptations of John Green‘s books The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, will be producing the GANTZ movie for Sony Pictures.
During an interview with Crunchyroll earlier this year, GANTZ creator Hiroya Oku mentioned that the deal to make a live-action GANTZ film occurred back in 2020 and that production was likely stalled due to COVID-19. Oku exclaimed that if production wasn’t going forward he would have liked the rights back, but considering Sony Pictures is pushing forward, Oku will have to wait for the rights to return to him.
The original GANTZ manga series is released in English by Dark Horse Comics, with an anime adaptation in 2004 directed by Ichiro Itano at GONZO. The series has also been adapted into two Japanese live-action films in 2011 and a CGI film in 2016. Dark Horse Comics describe the series as such:
Tokyo teens Kei and Masaru are killed by a subway train but awaken in a room with an ominous black orb that gives them weapons, suits . . . and orders. Fighting bizarre alien monstrosities in a deadly game, will they win their freedom or die for the final time?
Disclosure: Crunchyroll is part of Funimation Global Group, a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Aniplex.
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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
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