THE 47TH SAMURAI To Get Big Screen Adaptation

New Regency has picked up the rights to Stephen Hunter's The 47th Samurai, and they will adapt it for the big screen. It will be retitled The Sword. The production company has hired Robert Kamen (The Fifth Element, Taken) to write the script. 

The thriller is one of several books written by the author that revolve around an ex-marine named Bob Lee Swagger, who is also the same character from the Point of Impact which was adapted into a film called Shooter with Mark Wahlberg.

The story for sword "sees Swagger tasked to find a sword his father won during the Battle of Iwo Jima. When he delivers it to its owner in Tokyo, it’s discovered the sword is actually a priceless and historic katana, with shadowy forces willing to kill to retrieve it. Swagger is thrown into a byzantine Japanese culture and the yakuza underworld and, in the words of the book, needs to learn that 'in order to survive samurai, you must become samurai.'”

It will be interesting to see how this movie turns out. I wasn't the biggest fan of Shooter, but this one sounds much more interesting. 

Here's the story description from the book:

One afternoon Bob Lee Swagger gets a surprising visitor: a retired Japanese Colonel named Philip Yaho has researched the battles on Iwo Jima and believes Swagger’s father killed his on Mount Suribachi. He is also searching for the miitary sword his father used in the battle. Swagger manages to track it down and personally delivers it to Yano in Tokyo. When they examine it, it turns out to be not an old standard issue military weapon, but an ancient samurai sword, a national treasure. A few days later, the Yano family is murdered, their house burned to the ground, and the sword stolen. Compelled to solve the crime and recover the blade, Swagger enters not only Tokyo’s criminal underbelly, but also the violent, obsessive world of the Samurai.