New ‘Audition’ Adaptation In Talks At Focus Features

Negotiations are taking place between Focus Features, Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment, and Mario Kassar Productions to produce a film based on Ryū Murakami’s1997 Japanese horror thriller novel, Audition. However, this will not be the first adaptation of the novel. In 1999, award-winning director, Takashi Miike, developed an adaptation of the same name.

This modern take on the cult classic will be written and directed by Christian Tafdrup and co-written by his brother Mads Tafdrup. Producers include Ashok and Priya Amritraj and Mario Kassar from Hyde Park. Executive producers include Chris McGurk and Yolanda Macias from Cineverse as well as the novel’s authors Murakami, and Joyce Jun.

The Tafdrup brothers are best known for their work on the original Speak No Evil, which earned them eleven nominations at the 2023 Danish Film Awards. The prospect of seeing Audition remade under them is very exciting.

1999’s Audition was critically acclaimed and received praise from The Guardian, landing in its top 25 best horror films of all-time list. A quick synopsis from IMDB reads as follows:

A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all.