TOKYO SUCKERPUNCH (Gary Ross, 2007-2009) (rumored)

[Moltisanti]

Stumbled upon this and thought it was worth sharing. I'm not going to get my hopes up though, it sounds like this project is extremely far away from being official:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-et-scriptland12sep12-1,1,3870371.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&track=crosspromo

Tobey Maguire set to deliver 'Tokyo Suckerpunch'

Konnichi wa, Maguire-san.

Tobey Maguire, the star of three "Spider-Man" films that have generated more than $2.5 billion for Japanese corporate giant Sony, now has not one but two Japan-related projects in the works.

Warner Bros. announced Friday that it had purchased the film rights to "Robotech," an epic Japanese anime sci-fi series about giant robots on Earth, that Maguire will produce with Craig Zahler ("The Brigands of Rattleborge") writing the screenplay.

But the delightfully titled "Tokyo Suckerpunch," which Maguire has been developing as producer and star for two years with screenwriter Ed Solomon ("Men in Black") and producers Lucy Fisher and Doug Wick ("Memoirs of a Geisha"), has also recently picked up momentum. Now it looks like the movie -- a romantic comedy/action/modern noir hybrid that uses live-action and anime -- will reunite Maguire with "Pleasantville" costar Reese Witherspoon and writer-director Gary Ross, who also directed him in "Seabiscuit."

"One of the most attractive things about it is that it combines anime with live action," says Ross, who mixed black-and- white and color footage as a thematic device in "Pleasantville," his 1998 directorial debut. "It presents a lot of stylistic opportunities in how you shoot the live action so that it works harmonically."

Sony acquired the rights to Isaac Adamson's poppy 2000 novel "Tokyo Suckerpunch: A Billy Chaka Adventure" in April 2005, but last month Ross became attached to develop another draft with Solomon that he will direct if it gets greenlighted. Adamson wrote several other Billy Chaka books -- "Hokkaido Popsicle," "Dreaming Pachinko" and "Kinki Lullaby" -- which open up the possibility of another franchise for Maguire.

A draft dated May 22, 2007, is a jaunty, unpredictable foray into the peculiar, pulsing Tokyo cityscape. Billy Chaka -- popular graphic novelist, Cleveland native and rabid Japanophile -- travels to Japan for the first time to attend the premiere of a cheesy movie made from his self-mythologizing work (in Adamson's novel, Chaka is a journalist for teen magazine Youth in Asia). There, he must contend with not only jarring culture shock but also mysterious fans, Dolph Lundgren (who stars as the movie Chaka) and a dangerous, mob-related kidnapping that starts to resemble one of his own crazy plots.

Sounds like it would be a cool project, but again it's far away from happening and probably even more of a long shot that Lundgren would be involved.

[Jox]

Thanks a lot for sharing! Indeed it sounds a very long shot from happening, and how can we know the journalist didn't throw the Dolph name just to spice up his piece and make readers smile...?

[Rover]

Tobey McGuire...he's a pretty big star after doing Spiderman, I guess if he was involved in something there would be a bigger buzz...

[Tom]

It's in the LA Times and Dolph was in LA not long ago. Maybe he's lined up for it. Hopefully if he's the idea they're looking at as the movie version of Chaka, he signs on, otherwise you feel they might go for another recognisable, but not too big, action star. Maybe the recent Dolph sightings in the US circuit, looking in good shape, prompted the writers to give him the part. I hope so, I really liked Pleasantville and this would be a good role for Dolph. Better happen, really had. Still won't get my hopes up.

[Moltisanti]

Thanks a lot for sharing! Indeed it sounds a very long shot from happening, and how can we know the journalist didn't throw the Dolph name just to spice up his piece and make readers smile...?

I don't know for sure but I think Dolph is mentioned because his name is used in the most recent script that is mentioned in the article. Again, that doesn't mean he's the automatic choice, but he's at least who the screenwriter envisioned will working on the script.

[Mosquito]

I like the title very much, or rather, all of those Chaka titles are real masterpieces. "Hokkaido Popsicle"... "Kinki Lullaby"... the guy has a thing for cool word combinations. It's fun just pronouncing those titles.

[Jox]

From Publishers Weekly
This pop romp through the Tokyo of martial arts, yakuza and legendary geishas has more sly smarts than a Hong Kong gangster shoot-'em-up. First-time novelist Adamson hooks the reader with fast action, clever dialogue and all-over atmosphere, while complicating the plot mightily and implausibly. Billy Chaka is a popular columnist for the Cleveland mag Youth in Asia. He's come to Tokyo to cover the 19 and Under Handicapped International Martial Arts Championship. While Chaka is waiting in a bar for the arrival of his old friend filmmaker Sato Migusho, an apparently drunken woman enters and rushes for the ladies' room. Immediately recognizing her as a geisha in disguise, on the lam from disgruntled clients, ChakaDwho has a weakness for geishasDhelps her escape and handles the tough guys with some dandy kickboxing moves. After Chaka learns that Sato has died in a seemingly accidental fire at his secret luxury hideout, the Garden of Earthly Delights, he ducks his reporterly duties and sets out to find the geisha. While on this quest, underwritten by a yakuza leader named Kwaidan and an unnamed religious cult, Chaka keeps stumbling over imponderables in the Sato case, including the news that Sato was about to film an unauthorized version of Chaka's own life, entitled Tokyo Suckerpunch. This novel is all speed and no depth, but that's forgivable in a narration that detours around such marvelous (and doubtful) Japanese pop esoterica as current fashions in Japanese motorcycle gangs and the tape-recorded politesse of Japanese vending machines. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

Meet Billy Chaka, ace reporter for Cleveland's hottest-selling Asian teen magazine. He's brash, savvy, and prone to hair-trigger fits of karate. Billy's in Tokyo to cover the 19-and-Under Handicapped Martial Arts Championship and meet up with his friend Sato Migusion, the international renowned director of such cult film classics as Sex Up the Hotrod, Baby! But Sato never shows. Instead, the girl of Billy's dreams stumbles into a dive bar with tatooed Yakuza mobsters in hot pursuit. Then Billy will start brawls in swanky corporate sex clubs, be offered a golf club membership by a secret religious order, meet a dog trained in the ways of the Samurai, and race stolen motorcycles through the neon-choked streets of Tokyo. Packed with enough over-the-top fists action to make Jackie Chan cry, and featuring the most lovable uncool hero since Austin Powers, this hilarious send-up is a pop culture potpourri of sub-epic proportion.

[Rover]

"dandy kickboxing moves"
"enough over-the-top fists action to make Jackie Chan cry"

This is not a serious action movie then...I'd love to see a new Big Trouble in Little China, but I don't think Dolph is the right guy.

[The_Canadian]

are you kidding? This is perfect!

[Mosquito]

are you kidding? This is perfect!

Absolutely.

[The_Canadian]

I'd love to seea BTILC-type movie with Dolph:

Dolph: Shut up Mr Maguire! You were not brought upon this world to "get" it!
(snaps Maguire spin over knee)

END OF MOVIE.

[Rover]

Haha...ok, Dolph is a great actor when it comes to action. But I never saw him telling a joke or saying some one-liners that were deliberatly over-the-top on comical purpose. He says his "funny" lines without humor, this is supposed to be serious!
That would be his first role of this kind...I'm not sure he could do it, but why not if The Canadian and Mosquito believe so

[Jox]

Not sure either but like everything else it could work if it's really well brought up... It's a bad example but his performance in "Fat Slags" showed how he could make fun of himself and not taking himself seriously, but overall wasn't that funny (when see the whole thing it wasn't really is fault because everything was so terrible)...

[dolphage]

Dolph: Shut up Mr Maguire! You were not brought upon this world to "get" it!
(snaps Maguire spin over knee)

END OF MOVIE.

That is the best script I´ve ever read!

[dolphage]

Haha...ok, Dolph is a great actor when it comes to action. But I never saw him telling a joke or saying some one-liners that were deliberatly over-the-top on comical purpose. He says his "funny" lines without humor, this is supposed to be serious!

I disagree. I think the dry, ironic humour he delivers jokes or overly cheesy lines with is one of his strenghts.

From the shitfest Agent Red:
Dolph´s boss: "Have you ever heard of Agent Red?"
Dolph: "Sounds like a bad action movie."