Paprika Anime Movie Getting Live-Action Series by Cathy Yan

Paprika, one of Satoshi Kon’s classics based on the 1993 novel of the same name written by Yasutaka Tsutsui, is getting a Hollywood remake. Deadline is reporting that Cathy Yan, who is known for directing Dead Pigs and Birds of Prey, will serve as executive producer and director of a live-action series based on Paprika for Amazon Studios and Hivemind.

According to the report, Yan will be joined Ash Sarohia as executive producer, who she started a production company with back in February 2021. Masi Oka and Jason F. Brown from Hivemind will also work on the series in the same role.

Satoshi Kon made anime films such as Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers before making 2006’s Paprika. Many directors around the world have been influenced by Kon’s style.

Paprika is about a terrorist who gets his hands on a device called the DC Mini that allows people to share their dreams. He uses this device to give nightmares to people. Atsuko Chiba, a research psychologist takes on the alter-ego of Paprika, a dream detective, to investigate the strange dream cases.

IGN also noted that Christopher Nolan’s Inception has many similarities to Paprika:

Kon’s adaptation stays mostly true to the source material, just with a few changes here and there to fit the large novel into a movie format.

There was a live-action adaptation of Paprika in the works in 2009, which was to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen. The project appears to be scrapped, as there has not been any update to it over the years.