Kevin Bacon really wants to do an American version of Takashi Miike's Audition

Kevin Bacon is no stranger to the horror genre, having starred in hits like the original Friday the 13th, Tremors, Flatliners, and most recently, MaXXXine, the upcoming third film in Ti West's X trilogy. He counts himself as a fan of the genre and recently revealed to Film Updates that one of his favorite horror movies is the cult Japanese film Audition from director Takashi Miike, based on Ryu Murakami's 1997 novel of the same name.

Chatting with the outlet about the iconic film, Bacon revealed that he's always wanted to do an English-language version of the movie.

"I really tried for a lot of years to to do an American version of it. We never really got it together. It was difficult for a lot of reasons. I was close [to making it] but we didn’t get it all the way. But that is a great movie. It would scare the shit out of [Debicki], who, by the way, would be amazing in it."

He's referring to his MaXXXine co-star Elizabeth Debicki, who was also part of the interview and admitted she doesn't like "gory things." She even covered her eyes from some parts of MaXXXine, adding that she still doesn't know what happened in certain scenes.

For those unfamiliar with the 1999 film, it focuses on a recently widowed man who sets up a mock audition to find a new wife. He connects with a young woman named Asami, and soon discovers that she has a very dark side.

Audition is considered one of the scariest and goriest movies of all time, even influencing horror directors like Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. Several sequences of torture featured in Audition have become infamous... like the wire saw scene. If something makes Roth or Zombie wince, you know it's got to be intense.

Producer Mario Kassar previously tried to make an American version of Audition

But Bacon isn't the first person to want to do an English version of Audition. In 2014, Deadline reported that film producer Mario Kassar (Rambo and Terminator 2: Judgement Day) was working on an Audition remake. Then, in 2016, he provided the outlet with an update, revealing he had purchased the rights to Audition, but admitted it was "taking [him] a long time because it is hard to do this movie," and he didn't want to do it unless he was sure he could do it "right."

Considering it has been almost ten years since then, I'm assuming Kassar's idea didn't pan out, but I'd be interested in knowing whether he and Bacon ever chatted about the possibility or if they had conflicting plans for the potential remake.

In MaXXXine, Bacon plays a private detective trailing Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) and digging into her past to see if she has a potential link to the recent spate of murders. Recently, Bacon's wife Kyra Sedgwick also revealed she and her husband were hoping to co-direct a horror movie together at some point, one that would feature their daughter, Smile star Sosie Bacon.

MaXXXine releases in theaters this Friday, July 5. To stay up to date on thrillers, sci-fi, and horror, bookmark 1428 Elm and follow our Facebook page and Twitter account!