Ninja Scroll, Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s 1993 anime about a mysterious vagabond who goes up against a demonic force of killers, with a ghost from his past as the leader, is quite possibly my favorite Manga release. It’s action-packed, uber violent, and has one of the coolest endings in the history of cinema.

The idea that this was to be adapted into a feature film was the best news since Warner Bros. also announced Akira. Unfortunately, neither happened.

Now, several years since it was announced that Watchmen writer Alex Tse was attached to the project, it’s been revealed that Gary Shore was up to direct for Warners and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way.

Shore, who was behind Universal’s awful, awful Dracula Untold – the first of the planned Universal Monsters resurrection – was allegedly in talks or even attached to direct Ninja Scroll.

The filmmaker, now serving time in director’s jail, shared a “proof of concept” video that he did in 2012. The animated visuals were done using mo-cap, with Shore explaining that it (thankfully) never made it to the next stage.

After toughing through Dracula Untold, it’s clear to me this Ninja Scroll adaptation would have been a disaster as well. Shore found a way to bore me in just 4-minutes, which is probably why this never went any further than the proof of concept stage. This “pitch” lacks storytelling, character, and the action is clearly overly ambitious. All of the problems prevalent in his Dracula rear their ugly head in this short. I’m sure he’d argue, “Hey, this is just an animated pitch,” but he’s the one who released it to the pubic. And if this was made in order to impress the studio heads at Warner Bros., it’s clear why they went in another no direction.

Am I being harsh? You tell me. I think I’m on point…