Akira Kurosawa... In all honesty, the name didn't ring any bells when I first saw this ANN story (obviously, I'm not a bowler connaisseur of classic Japanese movies). But as it turns out, Kurosawa was quite a legendary film maker, producer and screenwriter since the 1940s, having even been awarded an honorary Oscar in 1989. He died ten years ago, and his last script was "The Masque of the Black Death" - co-written with Masato Ide, and based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 horror short, "The Masque of the Red Death".

The script never made it to the big screen, but that will finally change in 2010, when The Masque of the Black Death will be getting a theatrical release as an animated film, jointly produced by Japan's Kurosawa Production and Lotus, America's Lexicon Film Ent. and Harbor Light Ent., and Singapore's Upside Down Ent.

2010 will also mark 100 years since Kurosawa's birth, and as part of the AK100 Project to celebrate this anniversary, his classic Rashoumon film from 1950 will be getting a Hollywood remake of its own. As for The Masque of the Black Death, here's a bit about its story from ANN:

"Kurosawa and Ide's version resets the setting to a fictional version of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, when most of humanity faces a deadly contagion. The suspense story deals with the human condition when people are pushed to extremes and despair."