It’s surprising to me that, even through the J-horror craze, Takashi Miike’s Japanese masterpiece, Audition, has yet to be remake. Yet, here we are, and I want to take some piano wire to my neck…

Deadline reports Friday night that Terminator, Rambo, and Basic Instinct exec producer Mario Kassar is assembling an English-language adaptation of Audition, the infamous 1997 novel by Japanese author Ryu Murakami about a lonely widower who gets more than he bargains for when he puts out a fake casting call to find a new girlfriend. Audition was adapted in 1999 into a cringe-inducing cult film in its own right by Japanese helmer Takashi Miike. The new Kassar-produced version is based on the original Murakami novel and will transplant the story to an American setting.

In this version, to be directed by Richard Gray (The Lookalike), Audition‘s unlucky protagonist is Sam Davis, who lives alone with his son following the death of his wife seven years prior and is convinced by a filmmaker friend to stage the fake auditions. The former ballerina with a mysterious past he falls for is now named Evie Lawrence, but otherwise details fall closely in line with Murakami’s best-seller.

Gray adapted the script and will tackle a fall shoot for Audition.