Last week, it was announced that Sega is developing a live-action movie adaptation of its bestselling Yakuza video game franchise, and now Yakuza Studio head Toshihiro Nagoshi has commented on the recent news.
During a recent Tokyo Game Show livestream (via a transcript from IGN), Toshihiro Nagoshi revealed the Yakuza movie was approved under the one condition that the project will only move forward with his approval.
“We had an offer from the West, and a Yakuza movie is now underway in Hollywood,” said Nagoshi. “In a case like this, usually you have the side that wants to (license the IP) and the side that owns the IP, and a deal tends to be done as business. But in this case, I made it clear from the beginning that if the content itself was no good and I didn’t agree with it, then I would not want to do it, and I’ve been very upfront about it.”
“I’ve told them that it will only proceed if it’s really good,” he continued. “So it’s a bit of a different arrangement than the standard (licensing) alliance. I don’t think (a Yakuza movie) is something that needs to be done for the sake of it, so it can only happen if it’s going to be good.”
The Yakuza movie is being developed by Sega with production companies 1212 Entertainment and Wild Sheep Content. Erik Barmack, Roberto Grande and Joshua Long will produce the live-action adaptation of the video game series, but no writers or director have been attached to the project as of yet.
Yakuza is Sega’s bestselling franchise after Sonic The Hedgehog – which had a successful movie adaptation earlier this year. The first game was released on PlayStation 2 in 2005 and has since spawned seven main title sequels – including the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon which is set to release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 13th – and eight spin-off titles on all major gaming platforms.
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