The sudden passing of director David R. Ellis came as quite a shock, but it looks as though his final unfinished project will still come to fruition.  Ralph Ziman has come on to take over as the director on Ellis' remake of the 1998 Japanese anime Kite, which was gearing up to begin production before Ellis passed away.  The story centers on a young girl whose parents are murdered in a gruesome double homicide and is taken in by two corrupt detectives who train her as an assassin.  Samuel L. Jackson is still set to star, and it was announced this weekend that India Eisley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) and Callan McAuliffe (I Am Number Four) have now joined the cast.

Eisley will be playing the young girl at the center of the story, Sawa, and McAuliffe is set to play Oburi, a childhood friend of Sawa’s who sets out to save her life but also may harbor some dark secrets.  Filming is set to begin in South Africa later this month.