DesignEXchange Co, the Japanese company which purchased rights to Akira Kurosawa’s screenplays back in 2007, has apparently gone bankrupt and will be dissolved in May. This was reported in ITmedia and Venture Now.
What this means for the screenplay rights is unclear to me, as is how this will impact productions that should already be under away, as for instance The Masque of Black Death, an animated film based on a Kurosawa script that is an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
The DesignEXchange company website doesn’t seem to make things any clearer.
I must stress a couple of things here. One is that I am basing this on the two Japanese articles mentioned above. The other is that I am not a native Japanese speaker, nor do I really understand the way Japanese businesses operate, i.e. what this all actually means. If anyone has anything to add or correct, please do so. I know that we have had a few people here who have been in close contact with DesignEXchange over the years.
Based on what I have been able to dig up (well, all thanks really go to an investor in Japan who has helped us before), the majority of the money currently owed by the now practically penniless DesignEXchange is owed to Kurosawa’s people (I assume Kurosawa Productions). This will likely mean that if the rights to the screenplays are to go anywhere, the most likely direction should be Kurosawa Productions. Which is relatively good news.
Another interesting tidbit is that due to the delisting of DesignEXchange and their current financial troubles, the accounting value of Kurosawa’s screenplays, on the paper at least, is currently close to zero. Not that, to the best of my understanding, this should have much real life impact outside of the bankruptcy of DesignEXchange.