Jim Carrey almost starred in a live-action adaptation of an anime classic as Hellboy screenwriter reveals he worked on a scrapped Lupin III script in the '90s

Hellboy screenwriter Peter Briggs has revealed the "craziest screenplay" he's ever written – and it's a scrapped live-action adaptation of an anime classic starring Jim Carrey.

"I was doing a movie with Tsui Hark (and Oliver Stone's producer, A. Kitman Ho) back in 1997," Briggs wrote on Bluesky. "A live action adaptation of 'Lupin III', that we would have done with Jim Carrey. Alex Ho (lovely, lovely man) ended up losing the rights, so it never happened. Craziest screenplay I ever wrote!"

Lupin III was a manga series first released between 1967 and 1969 that follows the adventures of the titular master thief, who's the grandson of grandson of Arsène Lupin from Maurice Leblanc's novels.

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The manga was adapted into a Japanese live-action movie in 2014, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, but is best known for its anime adaptations – namely the 1979 movie Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, which was Hayao Miyazaki's directorial debut.

Tsui is a Vietnamese filmmaker who's directed movies like Double Team and Knock Off, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, while Ho has produced several Stone movies, including Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, as well as Kathryn Bigelow's Willem Dafoe-led debut feature The Loveless.

Briggs, meanwhile, is best known for penning the script for 2004's Hellboy with Guillermo del Toro. The movie stars Ron Perlman as the titular demon-turned-detective, and the cast also includes Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, and John Hurt.

For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the best new anime still to come in 2025.