Ram Bergman

Chris Morgan, meanwhile, had just written the script for Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift when he teamed up with Hamada for 47 Ronin.

Hamada and Morgan would end up sharing a story credit on the film, although throughout production, Hamada was always described as an executive producer, not a writer, and Morgan's name is the only one on the cover page of the early draft of the script.

Neither Chris Morgan nor Walter Hamada has spoken much about this film, for reasons which will become apparent.

But my guess would be that Hamada helped to shape the initial story and the angle of this retelling, hence the story credit, but it is also notable that Walter Hamada is pretty much the only person behind the camera on this film with any Japanese heritage.

Instead, the project was bought and produced by Scott Stuber, who you might remember from our episodes on Rebel Moon.

In 2017, Stuber became Netflix head of original films, but a decade before that, he was heading up his own company, creatively named Stuber Productions, which had a deal with Universal.

So when Stuber came onto 47 Ronin as a producer, it became a Universal film.

And when 47 Ronin was announced as Universal's next big thing in December 2008, Scott Stuber was the one responsible for the big name attached to the film from the very beginning, Keanu Reeves.