Junji Ito’s Evil Beauty Tomie Gets New Adaptation from “The Hills Have Eyes” Director

Be prepared to be captivated once more by her terrifying beauty, as Junji Ito’s most enduring manga Tomie is set to be adapted by famed horror director Alexandre Aja! Aja is best known for directing horror films such as High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes and Crawl.

Along with Aja as director is David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who will serve as series writer. Like Aja, Johnson-McGoldrick has written for several horror films as well, such as The Orphan and The Conjuring 2 and 3.

This new take on Tomie is for the upcoming mobile streaming app Quibi. According to its website, the streaming service, which is an idea “from Hollywood and Silicon Valley”, promises ”quick bites of captivating entertainment, created for mobile by the best talent, designed to fit perfectly into any moment of your day.” Reports state that the mobile streaming app aims to offer “snackable” content—about eight to ten minutes—which users can view comfortably while on the go. Users will pay $4.99 every month for the version with ads, and $7.99 for the ad-free version. Quibi is set to be launched on April 6, 2020. Besides Aja’s adaptation of Tomie, Quibi’s line-up of upcoming content features original works by Darren Criss, Jason Blum and Guillermo del Toro.

Junji Ito’s career started in 1987, when the work that he submitted to a contest in the Gekkan Halloween magazine won an honorable mention from a panel that included his idol, horror author Kazuo Umezu. This work was eventually serialized as Tomie, the story of a beautiful woman who drives men crazy and who appears invincible—no wounds seem to kill her, and if she is dismembered, these body parts evolve into different copies of Tomie. The manga became a huge success in Japan and abroad as well, spawning a live-action film series with eight installments to date, several TV series, and anime adaptations as well.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter