Movies
Toho Going Creature Crazy With ‘Parasyte’!
Winning a fierce bidding war after New Line ceded its feature production rights, Japanese major Toho will make a two-part sci-fi-horror pic based on the popular 1990s comic Parasyte, Variety reports.
Shota Sometani, pictured below, who first came to international attention as a moody, violent teen in Sion Sono’s “Himizu,” will star as “a teenager whose body is invaded by an alien parasite that takes over his hand instead of, like many of his fellow humans, his brain. He ends up battling for survival in a world teeming with seemingly normal but potentially deadly alien-controlled hosts.”
New Line acquired the rights in 2005, with Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) signed to direct, but the planned live-action pic never materialized.
Under Toho, the director will be Takashi Yamazaki, a CGI whiz who helmed the smash hit “Always” series, as well as the SF-fantasy hit “Space Battleship Yamato.”
The two-parter will begin production in Jan 2014, with the theatrical release of Part 1 set for December 2014 and Part 2 in 2015.
The original comic by Hitoshi Iwaki was published monthly in “Gekkan Afternoon” magazine from 1990 to 1995 and sold 11 million copies in paperback editions. Tokyopop of the US published 12 volumes of an English-language “Parasyte” comic, ending in 2005.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallis.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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