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Call it "the Hunger Games Effect." An American remake of the 2000 Japanese cult film Battle Royale -- itself based on a 1999 novel by Koushun Takami about high school students forced to fight to the death on a deserted island -- died on the vine following the tragic 2007 Virginia Tech shootings. The original movie wasn't even officially released on home video in the US until earlier this year.
However, with the runaway success of the similarly themed The Hunger Games, Hollywood is having second thoughts about adapting Battle Royale -- but not in the format you'd think. What was originally conceived as a feature film might, if made, end up as a TV series. On The CW. The network is reportedly exploring this possibility but would first have to get Takami's approval. From a fan's perspective, The CW certainly isn't the ideal home for such violent, edgy fare -- a cable network like AMC, FX, HBO or Showtime would seem more appropriate -- but there are moments when Supernatural (and to a lesser extent, The Vampire Diaries) have flashed some edge, so it's not impossible to imagine the end result could be passable.
Even if The CW receives permission to develop a Battle Royale TV series, there's no guarantee it would make the schedule, especially considering the network already has another teen-centric dystopian show in the works: an adaptation of the Kiera Cass teen novel The Selection, whose competition is less about life and death than it is about winning a princely husband. Given that option, some of you might not think a Battle Royale series sounds so bad after all...
Source: LA Times
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