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Ghost Of Tsushima director wants entire movie's cast and language to be Japanese

Doom85

Member
Apocalypto

Which had only a $40 million budget (also had a well known actor advertised as the director so I guarantee that out butts in seats). I would be very surprised if Ghost doesn’t have at least a 100 million budget, I mean Uncharted had a 120 million budget but it also wasn’t a period piece that will require building a ton of sets, costumes, etc. to capture the specific era.

I mean, we’re talking about a film that isn’t part of an iconic IP (a successful video game, but so was Uncharted, and yet they felt the need to cast two major actors purely for the name draw and not if they resembled the characters acting-wise, so “successful video game” doesn’t always convince studio executives. And don’t bring up Sonic or Detective Pikachu, those go beyond successful video games and are full on successful franchises), so if you’re pitching this to a studio executive, they’re probably already looking at this as a possible risk and a writer then throwing in “oh, and there will be zero English speaking” is just going to make it even riskier.

Like it or not, the people in charge of a major film studio try to invest in films whose box office success is very likely. The more potentially negative factors you throw in that could lower that success, the less likely it will get approved. That’s just logical business. Now a smaller studio like A24 will take big risks constantly, but they’re investing in scripts that require far lower budgets. An adaptation of Ghost is NOT a low budget film. Or it could be, which would mean we get a Ghost film with battle sequences of the actors and like two dozen extras, the massive world is reduced to like three or four locales, etc. but yay, it’s all in Japanese!

I’m not saying it’s impossible the director will get his wish, but I feel you’re all setting yourself up for disappointment. Fanboy wishes are cute and all, but won’t sway the big wigs in charge of a major studio which employs thousands of people, they have bigger concerns obviously. I mean, when the director of Logan was talking about the black and white version of the film for the home video release, and was asked why the movie wasn’t just made that way for theaters, he said no way in hell the studio was going to approve of a $100+ million budget black and white superhero film. Even if the argument could be made that the film would still turn a profit, any executive would point out that the decision to make it black and white would be far more likely to draw away potential viewers than it would to draw new ones in.
 

Tams

Gold Member
This was be great if modern Japanese cinema and TV were not crammed full of absolutely shite actors. Many of the directors too (as their the ones instructing the actors how to act). The modern Japanese samurai films are all shit too; I saw a trailer for one the other day and had to close my eyes it was so cringey.

There are a few good, even great ones. They tend to go to Hollywood and I'm not sure there are enough to fill the cast of this film.

Also, Kurosawa is overrated, just like Orson Welles for Citizen Kane. Monumental? Absolutely. Foundational? Undeniably. Definitive? Definitely. Entertaining to watch these days? Well, definitely not for me.
 
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mansoor1980

Member
Tom Holland must have around 5% japanese dna?
he is a big hit in japan so it must be more than 5%

Tom-Holland-Spider-Man-Homecoming-Japan-Tokyo-Premiere-Red-Carpet-Fashion-Tom-Lorenzo-Site-7.jpg

DG4lU4QUAAE3SLZ.jpg
 

OsirisBlack

Banned
Which had only a $40 million budget (also had a well known actor advertised as the director so I guarantee that out butts in seats). I would be very surprised if Ghost doesn’t have at least a 100 million budget, I mean Uncharted had a 120 million budget but it also wasn’t a period piece that will require building a ton of sets, costumes, etc. to capture the specific era.

I mean, we’re talking about a film that isn’t part of an iconic IP (a successful video game, but so was Uncharted, and yet they felt the need to cast two major actors purely for the name draw and not if they resembled the characters acting-wise, so “successful video game” doesn’t always convince studio executives. And don’t bring up Sonic or Detective Pikachu, those go beyond successful video games and are full on successful franchises), so if you’re pitching this to a studio executive, they’re probably already looking at this as a possible risk and a writer then throwing in “oh, and there will be zero English speaking” is just going to make it even riskier.

Like it or not, the people in charge of a major film studio try to invest in films whose box office success is very likely. The more potentially negative factors you throw in that could lower that success, the less likely it will get approved. That’s just logical business. Now a smaller studio like A24 will take big risks constantly, but they’re investing in scripts that require far lower budgets. An adaptation of Ghost is NOT a low budget film. Or it could be, which would mean we get a Ghost film with battle sequences of the actors and like two dozen extras, the massive world is reduced to like three or four locales, etc. but yay, it’s all in Japanese!

I’m not saying it’s impossible the director will get his wish, but I feel you’re all setting yourself up for disappointment. Fanboy wishes are cute and all, but won’t sway the big wigs in charge of a major studio which employs thousands of people, they have bigger concerns obviously. I mean, when the director of Logan was talking about the black and white version of the film for the home video release, and was asked why the movie wasn’t just made that way for theaters, he said no way in hell the studio was going to approve of a $100+ million budget black and white superhero film. Even if the argument could be made that the film would still turn a profit, any executive would point out that the decision to make it black and white would be far more likely to draw away potential viewers than it would to draw new ones in.
I know how ridiculous and sad this industry is, and unfortunately, it is only getting worse. You are not wrong but you're just pointing out an obvious problem. Here is the rub, silent films were a thing. Look at Disney's WALLE how long is that a silent film? Even that was risky but it paid off.

Apocalypto cost 40 million to make and made 120.7 million

Passion of the Christ cost only 30 million and made 612.1 million

Those are considered huge successes and are movies that only use subtitles.

If your story is good enough and entertaining people will watch it.

I believe anything more than 80 million for a Ghosts of Tsushima budget is ridiculous. If you played the game or worked in film you would know that filming this on location and building minimalistic sets would actually be the way to go. You can build cheap on-set locations that look better than anything that you can make in post or on a studio lot. Until Hollywood and the films industry in general stop the mass production of garbage and trying to nostalgia bait everyone, we're just going to be spinning our tires.

Superhero movies need to be taken out back and put to bed as does the reliance on CG everything. I can only take so many more Thor Love and Thunders.
 

supernova8

Banned
Ugh we don't even need a movie adaptation. If they cannot do a good job of Uncharted (which has slam dunk easy movie adaptation written all over it and yet was still lame as fuck), they cannot/will not do anything good with Ghost of Tsushima.
 
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Trilobit

Member
Cool for the people who love this kind of thing, but subtitles are distracting and completely take me out of the movie/show. Makes me less likely to watch.



It has nothing to do with readspeed, even if it takes you 1/10th of a second to read each subtitle line, that's 1/10th of a second you're not focusing on the characters, or the background, or any other important things on the screen. Being able to understand what's being said by your ears instead of your eyes makes things way more interesting imo. As opposed to hearing a language you can't understand. It's only really tolerated for me when it's a language that the character(s) or the audience aren't supposed to understand

For me a big part in watching foreign movies is hearing the language. For example Spanish with its rapid pace or the gorgeous French. I've been watching both subbed and non-subbed since childhood and I never feel like it distracts me or takes me out of the experience. To each his own.

Only watching movies in English or in my native tongue my whole life would feel like a punishment though.
 
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Oh most definitely. Full Japanese voice with subtitles though? I think that's a hard sell for a big budget movie.
Probably. Depends on the amount of dialogue, if it's maybe one giant introduction monologue (in English) and then mostly scenery, brooding characters and huge long battles or whatever this movie is even about.
I have no idea what this info about this is supposed to mean. The director seems to have a vision that did not yet get approved. Seems weird to phrase it "he wants to do it", as though the studio does not, and in this way he tries to assemble supporters.

Anyway, Hua Mulan eg was at least somewhat better because of Mandarin while the Disney Mulan remake was void of anything interesting that warrants it's existence.
The problem casting a woman that is believable as a man isn't there with Tsushima. So all Japanese is fine for me, all vaguely Asian probably too since I can't tell them apart anyway.
 

jaysius

Banned
True to source material but won't break any box office records, I feel bad for those people that "don't want to read a movie" or whatever nonsense they come up with for hating subtitled movies there are incredible movies that are subtitled only.

A subtitled Japanese only movie won't make big money back, it should be a streaming like HBO Max title.

The fact that it's trying to serve the source material further cements that this should be a HBO Max series not a one off movie with all the characters and plot crammed into an hour.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This movie won Oscars and it's was totally in Spanish. And was in black and white.

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