This is one of those stories that seems utterly implausible at a first glance, but which seems to be legit. So, okay, you want to remake a film by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurowsawa. You’ve got Mike Nichols (The Graduate) directing, David Mamet has worked on the screenplay, and now you need somebody else to take over the script. Who do you hire? I’m willing to bet that the first name that came into you head wasn’t Chris Rock, but that’s what seems to be happening.
Black Voices says the news comes from Rock himself, who revealed while promoting his latest comedy, Death At A Funeral, that he’d been hired to take over from Mamet as the screenwriter of a new version of Kurowsawa’s 1963 film High And Low. Although it initially seems bizarre, it’s not actually as strange as it might sound. This would, after all, not be the first arthouse film Rock has adapted. His 2007 film I Think I Loved My Wife was adapted from Eric Rohmer’s L’Amour l’après-midi. He’s also optioned the remake right to the 2009 French comedy, La Premiere Etoile.
Rock will take on a project that’s been in development for a long time, with Mamet first working on the script back in 1999 (at which point Scorsese was executive producing, although there’s no news on whether he’s still involved). Kurowsawa’s original is based loosely on Evan Hunter’s King’s Ransom, and story follows an executive named Kingo Gondo, who learns that his son has been kidnapped. He is prepared to pay the ransom amount until he discovers that the kidnappers mistakenly abducted the child of his chauffeur. Gondo must decide between keeping the money he has saved up for a critical corporate buyout or using it to save his driver’s son.
It doesn’t sound very Chris Rock, unless Mike Nichols and co. are now thinking of turning it into a comedy. It’ll be interesting to see whether this ever makes it to the screen.