TokyoPop Announces Manga-to-Movie Deal for Priest

After recent announcements of additional layoffs and manga release schedule changes at TokyoPop, it seems it's not all doom and gloom at the Los Angeles-based publishing company. TokyoPop announced this week that they've made progress on a pulling together a movie deal for one of their manhwa properties, Priest by Min-Woo Hyung.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Priest, TokyoPop is offering free online previews of the first seven chapters. As the TokyoPop website sums it up, here's the plot for this horror/adventure Western:

In the frontier of the American west, a veil of evil threatens to engulf humanity. Servants of the fallen archangel Temozarela are paving the way for their dark lord’s resurrection. One man stands in the way of the apocalypse—Ivan Isaacs—a fallen priest who sold his soul to the devil Belial for the power to fight evil. Armed with a wicked blade and silver bullets, Ivan will give the heretics a baptism of blood in his pilgrimage for humanity’s redemption.

According to the Hollywood Reporter article circulated by TokyoPop, Scott Charles Stewart is on board to direct this "horror Western" film, with Michael De Luca, Josh Donen and Mitchell Peck slated to produce this film for Screen Gems. This is promising news for Tokyopop Media, the division that was created in June (along with the prior round of layoffs) to pursue digital and comics-to-films projects.

Earlier in the year, TokyoPop announced signings for a 3-D film project based on Kei Toume's modern vampire drama, Lament of the Lamb. While not much has been announced for this project since then, TokyoPop has produced a video trailer to support this project.

Coincidentally, ICV2 also posted a blurb about Keanu Reaves' plans to star as Spike Spiegel in a live-action feature film version of Cowboy BeBop, another manga title published by TokyoPop. While this project isn't one driven by TokyoPop Media, it is one that they're clearly very excited about, as they included it in their email blasts to fans.

It's all fine and good that TokyoPop is pursuing their Hollywood dreams, but is it happening at the expense of their core business, publishing manga?

Image credit: © Min-Woo Hyung