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Oscar winner to adapt ‘Resurrection’

    Oscar winner to adapt ‘Resurrection’
    Rubin to write script based on the Japanese film

    By Steven Zeitchik

    Oscar-winning screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin has been hired to write the DreamWorks adaptation of the Japanese cult hit “Resurrection,” tentatively titled “Rainbow Bridge.”

    The scribe, who has already written an elaborate treatment for the project, will offer the kind of emotionally centered take for which he’s historically been known.

    DreamWorks acquired remake rights to “Resurrection,” titled “Yomigaeri” in Japanese, last year. Akihiko Shiota’s 2003 supernaturally themed pic centered on a town in which people who have been dead for decades come back to life. Instead of engaging in zombie behavior, though, the townspeople simply return to their normal lives as though nothing changed. Brad Krevoy, Mike Callaghan and Tetsu Fujimura are producing along with Shiota.

    “Gladiator” scribe William Nicholson had initially been hired to write the script for the Steven Spielberg-Stacy Snider studio.

    Rubin is best known for another from-beyond pic — 1990’s “Ghost,” a love story that earned $518 million worldwide and won Rubin an Oscar.

    The CAA-repped writer also penned the early ’90s drama “Jacob’s Ladder” and most recently penned the Eric Bana-Rachel McAdams love story “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” which opened to $19.2 million last weekend.

    DreamWorks recently acquired rights to another Asian hit, Chan Wook-Park’s Asian action pic “Old Boy,” which Will Smith is attached to star in and Steven Spielberg is attached to direct, and also brought the Japanese manga property “Ghost in the Shell” with it when it split from Paramount.

    Original story at The Hollywood Reporter