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Live-Action 'Museum' Film Gets Prequel Drama in October

The official website of the live-action film adaptation of Ryōsuke Tomoe's Museum (Museum: The Serial Killer is Laughing in the Rain) manga announced on Thursday that the film will get a live-action drama prequel titled Museum - Joshō (Museum - Prequel). The prequel will have four episodes, and will be available on WOWOW Members on Demand on October 1. Additionally, the series will stream on GyaO! on October 14, and a re-edited version will air for free on WOWOW Cinema on October 13.

The drama will portray a punishment game constructed by the film's serial killer before the events of the film, and will center on journalist Jin Kudō, whose daughter the serial killer kidnaps. The serial killer contacts Jin, saying that if he wants his daughter back alive, he must do everything the serial killer says.

The drama is seen from the point of view of cameras, including cameras the serial killer set up, cameras in the environment, or cameras carried by people such as Jin.

The cast and crew of the drama differs from the film. In the drama, Masaki Miura plays protagonist Jin Kudō. Ririka Wakashima, Kokoro Morita, Yoshitaka Hosokawa, Hidetoshi Kawaya, Hideki Nakano, Eita Okuno, and Shōhei Uno also star in the drama. Kōji Shiraishi (The Curse, Sadako vs. Kayako) is directing the drama.

The film opens on November 12 in Japan. The site previously streamed a teaser for the film in June.

Shun Oguri (live-action Hana Yori Dango, Terraformars, Space Brothers, Lupin III, Crows Zero) stars in the film as the protagonist Hisashi Sawamura, a detective in the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide Section 1. Keishi Ōtomo (live-action Rurouni Kenshin films) is directing the movie. The film's official site announced on Friday that ONE OK ROCK (Rurouni Kenshin Part I: Origins) is performing the film's theme song "Taking Off."

Tomoe's original suspense horror manga centers on a series of bizarre murders by a man wearing a frog mask. The man calls himself a vigilante and performs the murders based on themes such as "dogfood punishment," or "punishment of knowing a mother's pain." Detective Sawamura is leading the investigation, but becomes aware that his wife is one of the killer's targets.

Tomoe serialized the manga in Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine from 2013 to 2014, and Kodansha published the manga's third and final compiled book volume in April 2014.

Source: Comic Natalie