Rumors of an American Lone Wolf and Cub movie has been kicking around for years, often packaged with big-name directors like Justin Lin (Fast Five) or Darren Aronofsky (Noah). But rare is the director that can conjure a movie from thin air; that’s why producers exist. So while there’s no director attached, a new Lone Wolf and Cub is looking more certain than ever.
Details come courtesy of Variety, who report that the producer of Baby Geniuses, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Baby Geniuses and the Space Baby and the two Ghost Rider movies, Steven Paul , has purchased remake and sequel rights from the studio behind 1993’s Kozure Okami: Sono Chisaki Te Ni, or Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict.
Paul is currently producing the live-action Ghost in the Shell , starring Scarlett Johansson and Takeshi Kitano. This new deal establishes him as a central player in the growing ecosystem of East-West coproductions reliant on the growing box office influence of China.
Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s Lone Wolf and Cub manga began in 1970, but didn’t see a complete U.S. release until the early 2000s (released as 28 adorably tiny trade paperbacks by Dark Horse Comics). The titular Lone Wolf is Ogami Itto, the shogun’s executioner until a complicated plot by the rival Yagyu Clan forces him to abandon his life and become a sword for hire. Itto travels the feudal Japanese countryside with his son Diagoro, who spends most of his time in a wooden baby cart stuffed with weapons and boobytraps. It’s the best goddamn comic ever.
Lone Wolf and Cub was adapted into six films from 1972 to 1974. A U.S. version, Shogun Assassin, came out in 1980, combining footage from the first two films. And while Shogun Assassin has achieved a cult following (it’s quoted at length on GZA’s Liquid Swords and watched by The Bride in Kill Bill Vol. 2), it’s not exactly the most faithful translation of Lone Wolf and Cub’s themes.
But the film rights bought for the English-language production are for Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict, a 1993 Japanese reboot that goes even further in wildly altering the grand narrative of the manga. Final Conflict condenses the immense scope into a single movie: changing the characters, largely abandoning Ogami Itto’s time as a hired assassin and even getting rid of Diagoro’s baby cart! (four of the movies have “Cart” in the title, if that helps give a sense of how central it is to the story’s identity)
Hopefully this new, English-language Lone Wolf and Cub will pull from the original source material, rather than the source material for this production deal.
In the wake of complaints his Ghost in the Shell remake whitewashes Major Kusanagi, Paul confirmed to Variety his Lone Wolf and Cub “will be shot with an essentially Japanese cast.” That’s a good start.
