LATEST NEWS

Tobey Maguire Discusses Tokyo Suckerpunch

by Alex Billington
May 2, 2007

The first time I heard about this too, I did a bit of a double-take, but now I'm hooked in. The title alone is just, to put it plainly, badass, and once you hear more, you'll be hooked, too. After Tobey Maguire sheds his Spidey suit and the hype of Spider-Man begins to cool off, he's got this film in the works as both a producer and probably the star. It's called Tokyo Suckerpunch and it's about the adventures of Billy Chaka, both a real life author and manga character. While promoting Spider-Man 3 last weekend, Tobey spoke briefly to us about the project and a more in-depth look at the story. It's worth checking out just to learn about and get familiar with early-on, despite we won't see it for quite some time.

"It's a great title. It's something I'm developing... with Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher's company, and Ed Solomon's writing the screenplay right now. It's based on this book by Isaac Adamson, called Tokyo Suckerpunch, and it's the character, Billy Chaka, who lives in Cleveland and he does this kind of manga thing, that he uses his own character, or a heightened version of himself, Billy Chaka, in this thing, and it's really a fantasy of who he is. And really he's this small town kid in Cleveland who thinks he's like, you know, he does have a cult following and I think he thinks he's more worldly than he is, and he has to go to Japan for - they've made a movie out of the Billy Chaka character, so he goes to Japan to go be part of the thing, and, reluctantly, he doesn't really want to go. And he ends up getting involved in a Billy Chaka type of adventure in Tokyo. It's really cool and I'm excited about it, so we'll see. We're developing it right now."

And to clarify if his ramblings weren't exactly clear, this is the plot synopsis from IMDb: Young writer Billy Chaka (Maguire) authors a column that portrays him as a hero living fictionalized version of modern-day Tokyo. His column is turned into a movie, but at the Tokyo premiere, Chaka clashes with the director, who turns up dead.

It sounds like a pseudo-manga comic book movie, but not really, and with Spider-Man starring, but not really. Without even knowing the real direction or anything else, I'm already excited for this, despite being a year or two down the road. And although not everyone is convinced Tobey Maguire is a great actor, I'm pretty much sold on anything he has an interest in after Spider-Man. We'll keep you updated on all things Tokyo Suckerpunch as it develops.

Tweet Pin It

Related categories: Movie News