Toei Converting Battle Royale To 3D For Re-Release

Briefly: This is basically just an article to anger all the existing fans of Battle Royale. Sorry about that. Toei is preparing a post-converted theatrical reissue of Battle Royale for release in late November of this year. This isn't a remake, a new version or a sequel. Just a conversion of the existing film from Kinji Fukusaku, which at the time of its release was a monster hit in Japan, and caused no small amount of controversy. The film adapts Koushun Takami's novel about a group of students in an alternate, fascist Japan who are taken to an island and forced to kill one another in an outlandish game of survival.

Fukusaku's son is supervising the conversion; he also wrote the screenplay for Battle Royale, and after his father died in 2003, he took over directing the sequel. (That didn't turn out so well.) Which cut of the film will be converted is unclear; there's the original theatrical, and a special edition with a few extra minutes and more CGI. And Battle Royale was never a visual powerhouse, so I can't imagine how well this will convert to 3D. The film never had a proper theatrical release in the US; this release may be limited to Japan. [Screen Daily]