Alexandre Aja to direct series based on manga Tomie

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Genre regular Alexandre Aja's latest directorial effort, the alligator horror film CRAWL, was just released in theatres less than two weeks ago, and an announcement has already come along to let us know what his next genre project is going to be.

Aja has signed on to direct a live-action series based on the Japanese manga Tomie for the upcoming streaming service Quibi.

Created by Junji Ito, the source material follows 

a young beautiful girl who acts like a succubus, possessing a supernatural power to make any man fall in love with her. Through her presence and emotional manipulation, she drives these men into jealous rages that lead to brutal acts of violence. While Tomie is inevitably killed time and time again, she is able to regenerate and spread her curse to other victims.

The Quibi adaptation is being written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, whose credits include episodes of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, as well as ORPHAN, THE CONJURING 2, and AQUAMAN. His take on the Tomie concept is the story of 

what happens when a beautiful high school girl goes missing and pieces of her body are discovered scattered across a small town. But what starts out as a murder mystery turns into something even more horrific.

Aja and Johnson-McGoldrick will be executive producing the series, with Hiroki Shirota co-producing.

This Quibi series isn't the first Tomie adaptation, the manga has already inspired nine feature films that were produced in Japan.

Scheduled to launch in April 2020, the Quibi streaming service will specialize in providing "quick bites" of entertainment meant to be watched on your smartphone while you're on the go. Episodes of Quibi shows will tend to be just 7 to 10 minutes long.

This Tomie announcement makes me realize that I have some catching up to do, as I haven't seen a single one of the movies.