First Look at Toho’s Space Survival Thriller ‘LEVIATHAN’ Ahead of AFM
First Look at Toho’s Space Survival Thriller ‘LEVIATHAN’ Ahead of AFM
Toho is heading deep into space for LEVIATHAN, and the first images from the upcoming Japanese sci-fi survival thriller have now been revealed as the project prepares to make its international sales push.
Goodfellas has unveiled the first look at LEVIATHAN, the live-action adaptation of Shiro Kuroi’s best-selling manga, ahead of the American Film Market. The Paris-based company is handling international sales outside Asia and plans to present buyers with the first promotional footage from the film, which is currently in post-production.
Set in 2127, LEVIATHAN follows a group of students traveling through space when a catastrophic accident leaves their spacecraft adrift.
Their situation becomes considerably worse when they discover that oxygen is rapidly disappearing and only a single functioning life-support system remains. With survival no longer guaranteed for everyone onboard, the students are forced into a brutal struggle that pits them against one another as the spacecraft continues drifting through the emptiness of space.
The film is directed by Michihito Fujii and Ryohei Shingu, with Fujii and Izumi Takahashi handling the screenplay.
Fujii comes to the project following his work on Netflix’s Last Samurai Standing, while LEVIATHAN represents another ambitious genre project from Toho as the Japanese studio continues expanding its international footprint.
The studio has enjoyed a particularly strong run in recent years, driven in part by the renewed global success of the Godzilla franchise and the international reception of Exit 8. The latter was acquired by Neon for North American distribution.
Leading LEVIATHAN are Shunsuke Michieda, known for Even If This Love Disappears From the World, and Natsuki Deguchi, whose credits include Look Back.
The newly revealed images provide an early glimpse at the film’s futuristic world, but international buyers will get a considerably better look during AFM, where Goodfellas is expected to unveil the first promo reel.
Toho has already dated LEVIATHAN for a February 11, 2027 release in Japan. International release plans have not yet been announced.
The project arrives at a time when Japanese genre filmmaking continues to find an increasingly receptive international audience, and LEVIATHAN has a premise built for that crossover potential. Its combination of young characters, dwindling resources and a confined spacecraft creates a survival scenario in which the threat isn’t necessarily something hiding outside the ship — it’s what desperation could turn the people trapped inside into.
LEVIATHAN is also one of several genre projects Goodfellas will be bringing to the market.
Its fall sales slate includes The Girl Who Was Plugged In, the upcoming science-fiction film from The Babadook and The Nightingale director Jennifer Kent.
Sophie Thatcher (Companion) is set to take on a dual role in the adaptation, playing a disfigured 19-year-old woman recruited by a powerful technology corporation to remotely control Delphi, a lab-grown human body designed to influence consumers and sell products. The project is currently in pre-production.
Goodfellas also has Michel Hazanavicius’ The Third Hand in post-production. Described as a radical fantastique drama, the film stars François Civil as a wounded French soldier who awakens inside a mad scientist’s laboratory and discovers that a hand has been grafted onto his abdomen.
The company’s upcoming slate extends beyond genre fare with Mia Hansen-Løve’s If Love Should Die, starring Renate Reinsve as pioneering writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft during her journey from Britain to revolutionary France at the height of the Terror.
Completed titles include Michaël R. Roskam’s World War II resistance drama Le Faux Soir and Kamila Andini’s Four Seasons, both of which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.
But for horror and science-fiction audiences, LEVIATHAN may prove to be one of the more intriguing titles heading into AFM.
A spacecraft stranded in deep space, oxygen running out and a group of students realizing there may not be enough life support to save everyone creates a simple but potentially vicious survival setup.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for the first footage as LEVIATHAN moves toward its February 11, 2027 Japanese release.
Deadline’s original report and first-look images
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