According to IGN, Battle Royale producer Roy Lee has had to put a leash on his Americanized remake of the gory Japanese thriller. In an interview, he claimed that the recent Virginia Tech massacre has had a heavy impact on the future of the film.

New Line Cinema had been pursuing rights to the property, which focuses on a ninth grade class imprisoned on an island and forced to kill one another. Last month's killings have stalled the progress on that front. Lee still wants to make the movie, but agrees that his script will need to make some compromises in light of the tragedy. He stated that "We might be a little more sensitive to some of the issues." Had the movie come out before the shootings, Lee seems to think that his project, "...Would have been slaughtered by the press."

Lee then went on to confirm that the Oldboy remake, which supposedly influenced Seung-Hui Cho, had also been put on the back burner. But that happened long before the school shootings occurred.