Ever since I first learned that Universal Pictures was going to be releasing a movie called 47 Ronin, I have had some serious misgivings about the project. The announcement that the film is close to getting a director is doing nothing to allay my fears—but it’s not creating new ones, either.
As seen in Variety, commercial and short film director Carl Erik Rinsch is close to signing a deal to direct Keanu Reeves and a cast of at least 46 other leaderless samurai in what has been called a “fact-based” adaptation of the classic Japanese story wherein a group of samurai redeem the honor of their slain lord by stalking and killing the man who drove him to suicide.
This is his real first feature film project, as the original plan for Rinsch to direct the Alien prequel was shafted by Ridley Scott’s decision to take the helm of it himself based on the blowback from the studios not wanting to give buckets of money to a newcomer who also happened to be dating Ridley Scott’s daughter.
Interestingly, the Variety article brings up this very same concept with this sentence: “[The film] is a priority project for Universal, and it is unusual to see a first-timer entrusted to helm a film with a large budget and tentpole aspirations.”
Now, I’m not automatically going to assume that all first-time directors suck. Nor am I going to automatically assume that all commercial directors can’t make a good feature-length movie. I mean, look at Makoto Shinkai and The Place Promised in Our Early Days or Duncan Jones and Moon.
No, I think I’m just going to hope for the best and pray that should Rinsch book this job, he’ll be smart enough to cast some really awesome Japanese actors in the lead roles and keep Reeves in a stunt-character role.
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