Audition is a 1999 psychological horror movie from Japan, directed by the master of weird, Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Dead or Alive, Ace Attorney), and mainly known cringe inducing finale – involving needles, eyeballs, garrote wire, and feet. It’s received a generous amount of critical praise, and regularly makes lists regarding the best horror films. Now there’s an American remake coming.
Okay, remake isn’t the best word. After all, Audition was based on a novel of the same name by Ryu Murakami, so you could consider this another adaptation – in fact, that’s what Deadline, who broke the story, is calling it. Then again, films like Total Recall (2012) and Carrie (2013) had a short story and novel, respectively, as source material, but they were really just remakes of the 1990 and 1976 versions, respectively, of the original works.
Richard Gray, director of the yet to be released The Lookalike and Sugar Mountain, is set to helm (as writer and director) the American Audition. Mario Kassar, executive producer on the Rambo and Terminator series, will produce. According to Deadline, Gray will “tackle a fall shoot for Audition” after he finishes filming Sugar Mountain.
Audition is the story of a middle-aged widower who begins dating a mysterious young woman. As you can probably guess by the aforementioned finale, the relationship does not work out.