47 Ronin – Picture: Universal Pictures
For a while, it’s been known that a sequel to the Keanu Reeves movie 47 Ronin is on the way to Netflix. We’ve got a bit more information on the sequel which we’ll cover below. Here’s what we know about Blade of the 47 Ronin.
Based on a fictionalized account of a samurai living in 18th-century Japan, the movie released in 2013 served as the directorial debut for Carl Rinsch. Universal Pictures released the movie with H2F Entertainment, Relatively Media, and perhaps crucially, Stuber Productions (Scott Stuber now runs Netflix’s movie division) behind the film.
To some, continuing 47 Ronin may be a surprise given the 2013 movie has gone down as one of the biggest box office bombs of the past decade (reportedly losing $175 million). Despite a big budget and Keanu Reeves leading the cast, the movie failed to make a serious impact.
Firstly, we can reveal the sequel for 47 Ronin’s name is Blade of the 47 Ronin whereas we’ve previously only known the movie as 47 Ronin Sequel.
The film was first known to be in development back in August 2020 when Deadline revealed that Ron Yuan who recently featured in Disney’s Mulan, would direct.
It’s being produced by Universal’s 1440 arm who are essentially the B-tier offshoot that produces lower-budget movies or offshoots to Universal’s top IP. Some of the titles in their arsenal include Doom: Annihilation, most of the Tremors movies and Dragonheart: Vengeance.
In April 2021, it was revealed that Aimee Garcia (known for Netflix’s Lucifer) is teaming up with author AJ Mendez as scribes for the film. The pair recently teamed as co-authors on the comic book companion series for Netflix’s GLOW.
Producing the movie is Convergence Entertainment with producers Tim Kwok, John Orlando and Share Stallings attached.
The logline for the sequel is as follows:
“The sequel to the 2013 pic will be set 300 years into the future in an exotic cyberpunk world. The film will be a fresh, re-imagined take on the original
feature and will incorporate horror along with modern samurai and ninja elements.”
Thanks to ProductionWeekly, we now know that the movie is now set to begin filming in September 2021 in Malaysia.
We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about the direct-to-Netflix project from Universal 1440 as and when we get it.