Commercial director and Ridley Scott protege Carl Erik Rinsch has finally found a project for his feature film directorial debut. Rinsch is in final talks to helm the Keanu Reeves epic period samurai film 47 Ronin (not to be confused with the adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel Ronin). Rinsch is not only Scott's protege, a commercial director for Scott's company RSA, but he is also romantically involved with Ridley's daughter Jordan. So basically, he's "in the family."
You might recognize Rinsch's name as he was originally tapped to direct a prequel/remake of Alien, but Fox convinced Ridley Scott to helm the project himself. I was one of the few people actually interested in Rinsch's involvement. Rinsch's commercials show an amazing sense of imagination, visual effects artistry and composition. We've profiled his amazing commercials on the site, more than once. If you havent checked them out yet, you should do so now.
Variety says that the film is a "priority" "large budget" project for Universal, which makes it all the more unusual that the studio is entrusting a first time feature director with the potential tentpole feature. Wanted screenwriter Chris Morgan has described the project as a "great, Gladiator-esque, 300-like big action movie with samurai and ninja."
"It's a time in Japanese culture when it was all about [the] bushido [code] and honor, and putting internal things over external things — swords that were made to be functional instead of ornamental, that kind of stuff," Morgan previously told MTV. "this turning point in the culture when that started to shift. Society started to be more about external kind of things. The story is about these samurai whose lord is killed in an unfair way."
Based on a true 18th Century Japanese story, the film follows a band of samurai swordsmen who are shamed into becoming the titular ronin — a Japanese word meaning lordless samurai, and must avenge the death of their master. The construct a huge plan and sacrifice everything to see it through.
I was really excited to see Rinsch direct a sci-fi project, as his commercials suggest he would be great at creating imagery in that visual arena. I'm not sure how I feel about Keanu playing a samurai, but if the project is even half as good as Morgan is hyping it up to be, combined with the potential of Rinsch, count me in.
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