According to Deadline, Overlord director Julius Avery has been hired to direct an adaptation of Gantz for Sony, based on the manga series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku.
Marc Guggenheim (Arrow, Green Lantern) will write the script.
The central story of the series revolves around Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, both of whom died in a train accident and become part of a semi-posthumous ‘game’ in which they and several other recently deceased people are forced to hunt down and kill aliens who are armed to the teeth with all sorts of futuristic weapons and gadgets.
Sony just wrapped production on Bullet Train, directed by David Leitch and starring Brad Pitt, which is another adaptation of Japanese IP based on the novel Maria Beetleby by author Kotaro Isaka. Hollywood reportedly sees the manga genre as having a big market in future years, so it’s no surprise to see Sony investing heavily in it.
Gantz has had a number of anime and silver screen adaptations in Japan, but this will be the biggest of the lot. The film is reportedly in the very earliest stages of development with no production start date yet, but Deadline does note that the studio is very high on the project.
Avery made his name with 2018 World War II zombie film Overlord, which certainly got him noticed in the industry; in addition to Gantz, he’s already working on a new Van Helsing film for James Wan and Universal, while he’s also got action thriller Samaritan arriving next summer.
The pieces are all in place for the rise of an exciting new genre director.
#Peace.Love.Gantz
