Dreamworks Taps New Writer for Yomigaeri Remake

Although the original Japanese movie “Yomigaeri” (aka “Resurrection”, but since retitled “Rainbow Bridge” for U.S. consumption upon remake) was about dead people coming back to life, it wasn’t really a horror movie. I mean, there wasn’t anything particularly scary about it, since the dead folks didn’t come back with a grudge or stood in corners with their hair covering their faces. Nope. In 2002’s “Yomigaeri”, the dead sort of, well, just went back to living life as if they never, you know, died. That was the premise of the Japanese original anyway.

THR reports that a remake of the film is still in development, with Bruce Joel Rubin now tapped by Dreamworks to pen the English translation. According to the trade, Rubin will go the “emotionally centered” direction, which would seem to be in keeping with the Japanese original, which was really, again, more of a drama with sci-fi elements than a horror movie. In fact, I would actually call it more sci-fi than horror.

And oh yeah, Rubin knows a thing or two about writing affecting emotional love stories about dead people. He was the writer on 1990’s “Ghost”, starring Patrick Swayze as a dead guy and Demi Moore as his pottery-spinning object of affection.

William Nicholson had originally been attached to write the screenplay, but that was way back in May 2008, when the film was scheduled for a late 2008 shoot.