The truth is that it was put on hold; why?  Heath Ledger was supposed to play the role of Roberto, a Spaniard from Dawn of Dreams (Onimusha 6^th series) and his sudden death affected the production schedule. They were supposed to start filming February 2008 when he died Jan 22 and producer Samuel Hadida has yet to find a new actor to play the role. The delay caused the Japanese cast to accept and work on other film projects and thus become unavailable for the filming of Onimusha.

Moreover, if it’s really for December 2009 release as it was originally scheduled, perhaps we should be seeing some real movie posters and trailers now on the net.  But there’s nothing I can find but a recorded video of the game posted by some fans in Youtube.com.

Fans were also worried that Hadida would find another actor to play as Samanosuke Akechi, a samurai warrior and hero in the video-game series whose central character, face and body were based on no other than Takeshi Kaneshiro who also provided the character’s voice.  One thing’s for sure, Hadida’s working partner for the movie and French director Christopher Gans wants Takeshi to play the lead role.

Still some doubt if the producers would allow director Gans to entrust a $70 million US dollar international movie to an Asian actor like Takeshi.  With Takeshi’s proven acting skills and good working attitude, I think he would never fail them.

This movie adaptation is a joint venture of producers – Paramount Pictures, Davis Films (Samuel Hadida) and Gaga Productions and was announced since May 2003. According to them, it would follow the simple theme “a samurai fighting against demons” with a woven love story, a big adventure film with many special effects. The film was re-scheduled for 2011.

For those who are not familiar with Onimusha, it is a movie adaptation of the fantasy-action-adventure video game series originally created by Capcom. They first release “Onimusha: Warlords” in March 2001, followed by “Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, Onimusha Tactics, Onimusha Blade Warriors, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege and lastly Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams” in March 2006.

The game series is set in 16^th century where warlords are using the forces of darkness to rule the country (Japan) but a young warrior (Samanosuke Akechi) steps up to fight evil. Its epic storyline uses the historical elements of feudal Japan and blend it with fictitious characters, fantasy, magic and fighting scenes. The title “Onimusha” represents a magical weapon that can be bestowed to certain warriors to help them fight the evil.

Capcom also created the Resident Evil which was turned into a movie series since 2002.  By the way, the 4^th movie series of Resident Evil titled “Resident Evil: After Life” is currently in the works and will be out by 2010.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, associatedcontent.com, beyondhollywood.com, gamesradar.com