Columbia Pictures officially announces FF Movie cast

[08.02.99] » Officially confirming a list published by Japan's The PlayStation magazine, Columbia Pictures begins hyping Square's movie project and reveals new production details.

   Confirming an earlier report from Japan's The PlayStation magazine, Columbia Pictures announced today the lead voice actors for the upcoming Final Fantasy: The Movie. The stellar (and instantly recognizable) James Woods and Donald Sutherland lend their talents to the film, which will be recorded in English long before a Japanese dub -- a reversal from the trend in the video game industry. The talent list, with previous projects, is as follows:

• Alec Baldwin (Hunt For Red October, Beetlejuice)
• Ving Rhames (Mission Impossible, Con Air, Entrapment)
• Ming-Na Wen (Mulan, Street Fighter: The Movie)
• James Woods (Contact, Hercules, Ghosts of Mississippi)
• Donald Sutherland (Six Degrees of Separation, Instinct, M*A*S*H)
• Steve Buscemi (Armageddon, Fargo)
• Peri Gilpen (Frasier)

   Voice recording has already begun in Square Pictures' studio in Los Angeles, under the supervision and direction of Jack Fletcher. Fletcher has done extensive work in voice direction in the past, recently handling dubs of the anime films "Kiki's Delivery Service," "Princess Mononoke" and the live-action "Black Mask" starring Jet Li.

   The Final Fantasy movie, currently in production in Honolulu, is still on track for a 2001 release. "I am delighted to be working with such talented actors who can enliven and bring a truly human dimension to the computer-generated photo-real characters," said Hironobu Sakaguchi, the film's director and the man behind Square's Final Fantasy RPG series.

   Working alongside Sakaguchi are producers Chris Lee, Jun Aida and Akio Sakai. "I have been a fan of Hironobu Sakaguchi's extraordinary cinematic video games for years and I am so excited that he'll now be able to combine his brilliant sense of visual style on the big screen with the superb level of acting talent assembled for 'Final Fantasy -- The Movie,'" enthused Lee.