Friday, June 22, 2012

Nagasawa Masami's drama gets axed before filming; NHK suing Kodansha for damages

NHK filed a lawsuit against publisher Kodansha on 21 June at Tokyo District Court for the losses arising from the cancellation of a deal to dramatise a novel published by the latter. The novel in question is Tsujimura Mizuki's "Zero, Hachi, Zero, Nana" published in 2009 and was a nominee for the Naoki Award, depicts the clashes between a mother and a daughter set in Tsujimura's hometown in Yamanashi Prefecture. Nagasawa Masami was scheduled to play the role of the daughter in this drama. NHK and Kodansha already had a deal to produce a drama based on this novel and the TV station had incurred costs totaling JPY 59.8m prior to filming. The drama was originally scheduled to be shown via NHK BS Premium in May this year over 4 weeks.

However, Tsujimura did not approve of how the script treated two important developments in the novel i.e. the premature meeting between mother and daughter and the deletion of the part where the daughter finds out about a self-confession letter indicating that the mother was fully aware of her mental abuse towards her child. Despite numerous discussions, both sides failed to reach an agreement and Tsujimura instructed Kodansha to withdraw her verbal agreement to the deal on the same day when filming was to start in February. Although there is no written contract, NHK indicated in its legal papers that they had already incurred costs before the filming and the last-minute cancellation was a dent on its reputation.

Source: Sanspo

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