Just before Keanu Reeves returned to the spotlight with the John Wick franchise, he led the critical and financially disastrous 47 Ronin for Universal Pictures but despite the film’s failure, the studio has greenlit a sequel with Mulan star Ron Yuan set to direct, according to Deadline.
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The new film will be set 300 years in the future in an exotic cyberpunk world and will offer a re-imagining on both the original 2013 film and its loose source material Chūshingura, with sources reporting the film will incorporate horror elements alongside its modern samurai and ninja elements.
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“I’m incredibly excited to be working with Universal and the producing team on this genre-blending, martial arts, action, horror and cyber-punk film,” said Yuan. “This will be a fun, intense, supercharged thrill ride for viewers globally.”
The sequel is set to be produced by John Orlando, Share Stallings and Tim Kwowk, with Universal 1440 Entertainment also attached to produce for the original studio and Netflix set to distribute the film. The filmmakers are currently eying an early 2021 production start date for the project.
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47 Ronin was written by Chris Morgan (Fast & Furious franchise) and Hossein Amini (The Snowman) on a story from Morgan and Walter Hamada (The Batman) and directed by Carl Rinsch in his debut and featured a cast including Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada (Mortal Kombat), Tadanobu Asano (Mortal Kombat), Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim) and Ko Shibasaki (One Missed Call). Loosely based on the fictionalized accounts of the titular group, the story centered on the 47 rōnin in 18th century Japan as they set out to avenge the death of their master.
The film was a notorious flop for Universal Studios, being panned by critics and audiences alike and only grossing $151 million at the global box office on its $175 million budget, being considered one of the biggest box office flops in history and leaving the studio in the red for 2013.
