CW Eyes 'Hunger Games'-Esque Japanese Feature 'Battle Royale'

Courtesy Everett Collection

"Battle Royale"

The CW is looking for a Hunger Games project beyond The Selection.

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The youth-focused network is exploring rights to the 2000 Japanese feature film Battle Royale, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

The controversial movie, which like Hunger Games, is set in a dystopian future in which high school students are forced to fight one another to the death and are based on Koushun Takumi's novel of the same name.

STORY: 'Battle Royale,' 'Chinatown Hit Blu-ray for the First Time

Anchor Bay released the Blu-ray -- and for its sequel, Battle Royale II: Requiem -- just days before the domestic release of Hunger Games, in a bid to capitalize on interest in the similarly themed Lionsgate blockbuster.

Should the CW land the rights, Battle Royale would join the dystopian drama The Selection in the network's development pipeline. The network opted to redevelop the buzzy pilot starring Friday Night Lights' Aimee Teegarden rather than passing outright on the adaptation of the books by Kiera Cass. The network is potentially eyeing the project for midseason.

CW president Mark Pedowitz told THR that he's an avid fan of the genre. "I read all the Hunger Games books; I wander through the young adult dystopian fiction area quite a bit," he told THRat the network's upfront presentation in May. "If you're not an angel, werewolf or vampire, you're a female heroin who's 16 years old who fights in the future dystopian world."

STORY: CW Redeveloping 'Hunger Games'-Esque Pilot 'The Selection'

The Selection is described an epic romance set 300 years in the future which centers on a poor young woman (Teegarden) who is chosen by lottery to participate in a competition to become the next queen of a war-torn nation at a crossroads. Ethan Peck and Sean Patrick Thomas co-star in the Warner Bros. Television pilot, which was written and exec produced by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain.

Selection remains a valuable development property for the network, which has found success with The Vampire Diaries, which it developed to take advantage of the Twilight craze. Vampire Diaries currently stands as the CW's top-rated series.

The L.A. Times first reported the news.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit