News and Events
FTT Talks presents:
Roy Lee
Cofounder and Producer,
Vertigo Entertainment
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Browning Cinema
Class Screening
Dark Water
(Produced by Roy Lee,
Directed by Walter Salles,
2005, 105 mins,
Special Unrated Version)
This film is the American remake of the Japanese original horror film Honogurai mizu no soko kara (Directed by Hideo Nakata, 2002)
Class Lecture and Q&A
"Asianizing Hollywood: Remaking Asian Blockbusters for the American and Global Film Markets"
Who is Roy Lee?
New Yorker Magazine and Hollywood insiders refer to Roy Lee as the "Remake King." Mr. Lee refers to himself as "the target audience" that Hollywood seeks to entice since he describes himself as someone who is "young, likes commercial fare, and gets bored easily." Mr. Lee received this call sign since he is the cultural middleman who is the catalyst for a new found link between the film industries of Asia and Hollywood. Mr. Lee created a new business model by obtaining the American remake rights for Asia's top box-office hits and then negotiating their remake in Hollywood with one of the major studios. His first two remake successes involved the Japanese horror films Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) and Ju-on (Takashi Shimizu, 2000). These are better known in the USA as The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002) and The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu, 2004), respectively. Mr. Lee will discuss what he does in making this remake phenomenon possible. More importantly, he will also discuss the many additional steps that are involved before the final version of the film is released in the theatres.
Co-Sponsored by Center for Asian Studies & Undergraduate Intellectual Initiative