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Samuel L. Jackson Joins Live-Action Kite Film Cast

According to an interview posted by the Movies.com website on Monday, actor Samuel L. Jackson (Jungle Fever, Pulp Fiction, The Avengers) will be joining the cast of the live-action film adaptation of Yasuomi Umetsu's Kite anime. He told the site, "After [RoboCop in January]. I'm going to do this live-action version of Kite, the Japanese anime, I'll be doing a live-action version of that in Johannesburg." He will then shoot his scenes for the Captain America: The Winter Soldier film.

The Film Business Asia website reported last year that the film will begin shooting in South Africa on a US$12-million budget, although it said at the time that the filming will begin in January of 2012. Director David R. Ellis (Shark Night 3D, Cellular, the sequels Final Destination 2 and The Final Destination, Asylum) was attached to the project earlier this year. Ellis had directed Jackson on Snakes on a Plane, but Jackson did not confirm if Ellis is still attached. Distant Horizon's Anant Singh and Brian Cox were producing the project along with Moisés Cosío and Alejandro Saevich of Detalle Films in Mexico.

According to Variety, the Kite remake will be an action film about a young woman with financial troubles. A corrupt security force that had been selling young women murders her police officer father. The woman teams up with her father's former partner to uncover the mystery of his death, unaware she was betrayed from the start. Film Business Asia said that "Distant Horizon sources describe the new film as a 'full on female actioner' with 'gritty realistic action.'"

Media Blasters released the original Kite anime and its sequel Kite: Liberator in North America.

Jackson was also the executive producer and cast member of the two Afro Samurai anime projects (which also had live-action plans), and he voiced the character Zog in the CG film version of Astro Boy. He just finished shooting Spike Lee's remake of the Oldboy film.

[Via Collider, The Fandom Post]