Hm. According to Deadline, Warner Brothers has acquired the script for The Outsider, a period drama about a white dude who becomes a Japanese gangster. Wait, whaaaat? Yeah, you read that right. Think The Last Samurai, except with Yakuza: Warner Bros Acquires Yakuza Drama 'The Outsider.'
The Outsider, an original screenplay written by Andrew Baldwin, tells the story of an American POW who stays in Japan after World War II, and works his way up the ranks to become a rare non-Japanese member of the fearsome Yakuza.
Well, of course he does:
Warner Bros has made a preemptive acquisition of The Outsider, a script for a period drama written by Andrew Baldwin that the studio is making a priority. The title character is an American who spent WWII as a POW in Japan. He stays in Japan after the war ends, and works his way through the rituals and hardships to become the rare outsider who gains membership in the Yakuza, the organized crime outfit. It was developed at Linson Entertainment, based on an idea by John Linson. He will produce with his father, Art Linson. They are executive producers of the FX series The Sons of Anarchy who also collaborated on The Runaways and Lords of Dogtown. Baldwin is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content.
I don't know if this movie is going to be good or bad or what, and the reports don't mention anything about casting quite just yet. But I'm going to presume that they're going to be looking for a Caucasian actor to star as the titular Outsider.
I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again: Hollywood can make a movie set anywhere in the world, in any era of history... and still somehow find a way for the movie to star a white guy.
More here: Warner Bros. Acquires Yakuza Flick THE OUTSIDER.
By the way, the image above is the poster for the 1993 direct-to-video movie American Yakuza, starring Viggo Mortensen.
