Good news for those who’d like to take a closer look at Mamoru Oshii’s Assault Girls without importing the Japanese DVD or Blu-ray Disc that will be released next week on June 23rd.
Nippon Cinema reports that Well Go USA has acquired the US rights for Oshii’s Girls with Guns flick starring Meisa Kuroki, Rinko Kikuchi and Hinako Saeki, and will release it on R1 DVD on October 19th.
This release is supposed to include English subtitles for the Engrish dialogues. Although Well Go USA has already released several titles on Blu-ray Disc, no high definition release has been announced this time.

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And the next live-action adaptation based on a DC Comics series. Josh Brolin plays Jonah Hex, a tough gunslinger and bounty hunter with connections to the “other side” who tries to track down his nemesis Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) in order to gain freedom from the warrants put on his head from the military. Some of you might notice that Megan Fox is playing a skimpy dressed western whore…what a surprise!

Jonah Hex opens in US theaters on June 18th.
[via ComingSoon.net]

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Fans of heavily armed and armored girls rejoice! Geneon Entertainment Japan has announced to release Assault Girls, Mamoru Oshii’s quasi-sequel to Avalon on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 23, 2010 in standard and special collector’s editions. The latter will include a bonus disc with a bunch of promotion material, the ‘prequels’ to Assault Girls, Assault Girl (Oshii’s segment for True Female Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters, click here to watch) and Assault Girl 2 (taken from the Kiru ~ KILL omnibus), a 92-page storyboard script written by Oshii and an enhanced booklet (16 pages instead of just four).
None of these editions will include English subtitles, but according to some theatrical reviews the films dialogues are all in Eng(l/r)ish anyway. Hopefully our sweet girls had access to better vocal coaches than those cowboys in Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django…
[via @wildgrounds]

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NTV has aired an almost one minute long promotion teaser for Shinsuke Sato’s upcoming two-part live-action adaptation of Hiroya Oku’s manga series GANTZ. The teaser features a few seconds of actual movie footage (we’ve seen most of it in the first TV spot), some behind-the-scenes material and a comparison of the main characters and their manga counterparts.

[via Nippon Cinema]

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In an interview with MTV Splash Page, director Wolfgang Petersen talked about his plans for the announced live-action adaptation of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s novel Paprika that Japanese director Satoshi Kon and Studio Madhouse turned into an amazing anime in 2006.
Petersen praises Kon’s adaptation and states that an yet unnamed author is currently working on the adaptation but a screenplay hasn’t been written yet. Unfortunately, he also mentions something that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Hollywood adaptations:

We open it up a little bit more so it’s more accessible for a wide audience, but it comes a little bit sort of “Matrix” feel. [...] Not like Matrix but sort of the size of it all, the scope of it all. So that it becomes more of a film for a mainstream audience.

[via Quiet Earth]

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Vulture exclusively reports that the Hughes Brothers, Albert and Allen (The Book of Eli, From Hell, Menace II Society) are currently in negotiations to direct Warner Bros. live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s manga Akira. As previously reported in September 2009, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby are supposed to turn the six manga volumes into scripts for two films that will probably open in 2011. An official announcement is expected later this week.

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At least one half of you sex- and gorehounds out there should be pleased after taking a quick look at this scan with Natsuna Watanabe showing some skin for Shinsuke Sato’s live-action adaptations (coming Spring and Winter 2011) of Gantz…

Sankaku Complex has some more pictures from the films, but most of them just look like fan creations. Some real footage has already been released in form of a very short TV spot:

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