Wolfgang Petersen Adapting Paprika Anime
Posted 04.12.10 by BrentJS
Superheroes are all the craze in Hollywood these days, but they may soon be supplanted by the next trend—adapting mind-bending Japanese sci-fi anime into blockbuster movies. Three of the most famous and influential anime properties are already being adapted for an American audience—Battle Angel by James Cameron, Ghost in the Shell by Steven Spielberg and Akira by Albert and Allen Hughes. Now, director Wolfgang Petersen has announced his plans to develop a fourth, an adaptation of the award-winning anime movie Paprika.
Petersen was blown away by the 2006 movie by Satoshi Kon, itself an adaptation of the 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, and plans to use it as the basis of his movie.
The original one—the anime that I saw—my people here they came to me and said, 'Have a look at this.' And I saw it and bingo, I thought, 'This is fantastic. This is a great piece.' That will be a very, very interesting movie.
Petersen said that "a young writer" turned in "a very specific and detailed treatment," of the proposed movie and that the screenplay should "go very fast" if the treatment gets the green light. Petersen wouldn't share any more details about the project, but he definitely has high aspirations for it, comparing it to one of the biggest sci-fi movies of all time.
We open it up a little bit more so it's more accessible for a wide audience, but it comes a little bit sort of Matrix. Not like Matrix but sort of the size of it all, the scope of it all. So that it becomes more of a film for a mainstream audience.