Shane Black to direct Hollywood version of Death Note
It has been reported and confirmed by Variety that Shane Black will be directing the Hollywood based version of popular manga Death Note. Noted as being Black’s favorite manga, “It’s my favorite manga, I was just struck by its unique and brilliant sensibility“.
The famous director reveals his intentions for the upcoming live action film, “What we want to do is take it back to that manga, and make it closer to what is so complex and truthful about the spirituality of the story, versus taking the concept and trying to copy it as an American thriller.”
For those of you who are not familiar with Death Note, it follows the story of Light, the protagonist, who finds a notebook, the death note, that allows him to kill anyone simply by writing their name down and picturing their face in his mind. Light proceeds to go on a mission to rid the world of criminals, he is eventually chased by a top FBI private investigator who goes by the alias of L.
credit: tokyofever
Looks like we get another American adaptation. I hope it'll be better than the ones in the past...
Favourite childhood manga? The guy was about 42 when the manga started.
Anyway, there is a chance this movie could be done 'right' but I have a feeling it's going to be terrible. It all depends on casting and how 'Americanised' the film becomes. Death Note is not something to be 'washed-down' to appeal to a greater audience.
the body grows, but the child-hood spirits doesn't :P
I think it wouldn't work too well~ and most likely will be Americanized
Probably will be like the Hayate no Gotoku that is getting the live-action adaptation in Taiwan.
Nagi is 13 Hayate is 16, yet the actor/actress playing them is 20 and 28 xD how does that work.
I doubt it would do very well anyways, I don't think even 5% of Americans (who isn't a teen) would even know what death note is.
To be fair, "favourite childhood manga" seems to be the article's phrasing, not the director's. In their own quote they have him saying simply "favourite manga", so I think you can chalk that up to bad writing.
Oh, yes, that's what I meant to be getting at! :) I just thought it was a bit silly of them to put it in the article.
lol lol yeah I think they had a miss typo as well. I double checked and they have edited out the word haha
Shane Black directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang which is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. It's dark, mysterious, and ridiculously funny.
I have complete faith in his abilities to make a legitamently good adaption of Death Note. Besides, it's not like the Japanese live action ones were great anyways.. things can hopefully only get better with the American version.
I've heard great things about that film. I shall have to check it out, especially now he's at the helm of Death Note. From another site, it sounds like he's doing the screenwriting as well so it does bring my confidence up a bit that he'll have more control, particularly if he is a fan. I just hope there's no pushy executives who don't have any idea what they're doing. They are adapting off of the manga however, so the film is already going in a different direction to the Japanese live action. This decision does make me happy because I didn't want to see those films re-hashed.
The Japanese ones were actually quite good. I'm pretty sure lots of things will be altered in this American version. I have a strong feeling it wont be set in Japan and we won't get the scene where a fake L appears on TV and Light kills him which allows the real L to confirm Lights location.
I second your Kiss Kiss Bang Bang comment, it's a fantastic film.
Not that I care much about this news, since I'm not a Death Note fan... ^^;
What I'm mostly interested in is how the characters are going to end up in comparison to their original character designs; like if L is going to be the L we all know, mannerisms and appearance, because apparently American audiences don't like skinny male characters. Also, how the plot is going to be shortened.
Taking a quick look at Shane Black's imdb, he doesn't have any hokey cartoon-to-live-action movies under his belt so there's hope for this movie, even if Zac Efron is Light (was that just a rumor or was that confirmed?).
Even though I'm not a fan of Efron, I think he fits very well to play Light.
I have to agree with you,but of course nothing beats the original japanese live action
I should be excited about this but im not.
I get the feeling the american adaption will seem out of place, English voices/speech, hollywood overkill of effects and trying to overdo it.
Ahwell guess we shall see when the time comes, i just hope it doesnt make me dislike death note after watching it.
But... Death Note already has movies! XD Do They want to kill other one of my favorite mangas? ... I don't believe that it works out not good at all...
I really hope Hollywood doesn't screw up my favorite anime/manga!
However I'm still curious about their version, how accurate will it be?
Any confirmed info on the cast? I wish Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds) was part of the cast, I don't know why he always reminds me of L and Light at the same time.
Hmm, did they really say L's role is gonna be changed to a FBI agent? L isn't with any organization but his own. Who's gonna play Watari? Michael Caine? XD
At this point,m I do not care if Hollywood can or cannot make a successful adaptation.
I'd rather they simply didn't pillage existing media — good, bad; new, old; foreign nor domestic — for ideas and actually aim to produce remotely original material. But that seems to be expecting too much... (-_-)'
Everything will be "IN AMERICA" when this movie happens.. (=3=)