This comes a bit late, but as reported by Hoga News which in turn refers to a Japanese article found here, it appears that the confusion with the planned and then cancelled Akira Kurosawa Film Academy is not the only issue troubling Kurosawa Productions.

Apparently, another recent project that was planned but which never materialised beyond the planning and tentative contract stage was an Akita based “Kurosawa Cinema Village”, which would have included a memorial museum, some of Kurosawa’s open sets, as well as a spa (perhaps modelled after Kurosawa’s favourite one where he wrote many of his scripts?). Whether this has anything to do with the Akira Kurosawa Foundation’s current plans to build a memorial at Saga prefecture, I do not know.

In connection with AK Production’s troubles, the Hoga News article also mentions the reports from last year that, as some may remember, indicated that the rights to Yojinbo and Sanjuro had been sold to Kadokawa Films for an estimated 300 million yen (2.7 million US dollars or around 2.1 million euros).