Producer Stephen Woolley is working on a remake of Kurosawa’s Ikiru
Carol producer Stephen Woolley is headed back to 1950s, and he’s taking an Akira Kurosawa classic with him. It was announced that Woolley is working on a remake of Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, but setting it in 50s-era London. The news was revealed in the forward to his new book, Scala Cinema: 1978 to 1993, as reported by Deadline.
“I still get inspiration from these beautiful Scala programs. Nearly 40 years on from that Scala screening, I’m reading a screenplay today for a version I commissioned that will be set in 1950s London, and which I hope to shoot next year,” Woolley explained.
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Woolley’s book is an ode to the theater that he set up in 1979 to screen Scala Cinema, the 1970s British equivalent to American Grindhouse Cinema — typically characterized as low-budget genre films. In it, he writes “When I look back at the programme I produced in June 1979, I realise that all of the ingredients are there as a blueprint for the future, from Klaus Kinski rubbing shoulders with John Wayne, Judy Garland linking hands with Toshiro Mifune, and Rock Rock Rock! sharing time with The Battle of Chile.”
Woolley’s most recent project he produced was Colette, which stars Kiera Knightley (Atonement, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) and Dominic West (The Wire, The Affair), which is in theaters now.