Our friends over at Latino Review got the scoop from a “trusted source” that Mandate and DreamWorks didn’t see eye to eye, [and] therefore DreamWorks has apparently walked away. As we mentioned in our previous story about the film’s tangled legal mess (click here for the whole thing), South Korean sales company Cineclick Asia, which represented the original film in international territories, actually negotiated the remake deal with Universal. Universal brought in Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment to produce the picture, and then Mandate acquired the rights from Universal. DreamWorks secured remake rights from Mandate, which remains involved in the project.
Despite repeated assurances that the Spielberg/Smith venture was to be based on the original manga by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya and not Chan-wook Park’s masterful 2003 film, fans have been up in arms over this endeavor since it was first announced. At least now their ruffled feathers can be smoothed over, and we can all move on to the next ridiculous sounding remake news to come out of Hollywood.