Starburst Magazine

TV News: BATTLE ROYALE To Take The Fight To The Small Screen?

Written by Kris Heys Friday, 27 July 2012

US TV network The CW are in early talks to bring Koushun Takami’s 1999 novel-turned-manga-turned-movie, BATTLE ROYALE, to the small screen.

A big-screen Hollywood remake was attempted some time ago, but never came to fruition, presumably because America wasn’t yet ready to see children fight to the death. Enter Suzanne Collins and a certain series of books, and the rest was history! It was suddenly okay to teenagers slaughter each other – hell, the world lapped it up! Although whether the world is quite ready to see a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl seduce a championship boxer by ‘accidentally’ wetting herself in front of him is another story entirely. Yes, this happens, and it isn’t remotely the most shocking thing to be depicted in the manga series.

There is actually huge potential for a brilliant TV show here, as the source owes itself more to a serialised format than a movie. You only have to take a look at the 15 volume manga to understand just how much story there is - adopting as it does a LOST-style flashback narrative to explore the varied pre-island lives of the 42 school children forced to participate in the barbaric televised tournament.

Even if they skip the overly gratuitous moments like the one mentioned earlier, the potential TV series would only ever really do the source justice if it were on a more adult-friendly channel like HBO, Showtime, AMC or similar. We’re not interested in a sanitized BATTLE ROYALE. We already have Katniss and co for that.

We'll have more on this as it develops...

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