In a move I applaud and at the same time think it’s about four years too late, Sam Raimi has aquired the film rights for the Sony horror title Siren. As most of us know, Raimi also produced the English remake to Ju-On (“The Grudge“). He also knows how to remake a foreign film the correct way, as he used the same director as the original film (Takashi Shimizu) and kept the setting in Japan, although he changed the leads to English speaking characters. As to why they just didn’t subtitle or dub the original Japanese verison and release it here, that’s for another topic.

By the way, there is a Siren film currently in production in Japan, so I don’t know if this is the rights to the game itself or the rights to the film version of the game.

And just to clarify my earlier statement: I don’t think that Raimi is late in licensing Siren specifically, but I do think Hollywood is late to pick up on Asian cinema in general. Again, for another discussion.