Warner Bros. Acquires Death Note

[louiebling$]

Warner Bros. Acquires Death Note
Source:Variety

Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired rights to turn the Japanese manga series "Death Note" into a live-action film, reports Variety.
The studio has hired screenwriters Charley and Vlas Parlapanides to adapt the property.
The story centers on a college student who accidentally finds a misplaced "death note," infusing him with the power to kill merely by writing anyone's name on the page while picturing the person in his mind.
The 13-volume manga is a bestseller in Japan, and the film will be drawn from the first three installments, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

Finally maybe WB could show Fox how to Adapt Manga/Anime the Correct way!



Sorry if there is already a thread

 

[X-Ray]

It should be interesting to see what they do with Ryuk. If they give the Light role to Efron. This movie is ****ed.

 

[mr. peasant]

Hmm... Hollywood seems to be jumping onto the anime adaptation bandwagon. As far as I'm aware, Cowboy Bebop is in development, Eva is in production hell and Airbender (not an anime, I know but looks close enough to fool most lay people) is being filmed. Now, WB plans on making Death Note. Makes one wonder what other animes/mangas we'll see make the transition.

 

[oakzap425]

Zac Efron for Light Yagami.

No joke... they are like, identical.

 

[Crook]

Except for the whole....race thing.

 

[Jolie_Desastre]

I'm about halfway through the series. Wonder how they are going to pull it off.
And I've seen so many Efron/Ryuk manips I wouldn't be surprised if they casted him haha

 

[Lone]

Elijah Wood needs to be L.

 

[terry78]

I predict someone will nab the rights to Bleach soon. That is the other anime that is currently grabbing mainstream attention, partly due to Adult Swim. Rated R for constant Matsumoto cleavage.

 

[X-Ray]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt for L or Light or Mello.

 

[The Major]

Johnny Depp for L. Not sure who could be Light. That's tricky to cast.

edit: After this they should make a Death Note tv show which should be on FX or HBO.

 

[JokerLedger]

Jake Gyllenhaal for L... it's a freakin no-brainer

 

[oakzap425]

Johnny Depp for L. Not sure who could be Light. That's tricky to cast.

edit: After this they should make a Death Note tv show which should be on FX or HBO.

Okay, I admit that the casting of Efron for Light is pretty ******ed, even though I feel, physical appearance is scary... but for series, Depp as L?

L is like 12 compared to him. And no amount of make up will help Depp look any younger.

I love Depp, and I understand Depp has the weird, quirky, off the wall thing down, but jesus ****ing christ, the type cast thing needs to stop. He shouldn't be considered at all for L. I would never watch this if he were, and I'm a die hard Death Note Fangirl to the end.

 

[oakzap425]

Except for the whole....race thing.

That's cute, since most Asian to american adaptation has so many Asians in them.

I could understand if this was heavly influenced on asian mythology, but casting asians in this movie really isn't that necessary. This is one of those series that really could be adapted to a change of races very well.

 

[oakzap425]

I predict someone will nab the rights to Bleach soon. That is the other anime that is currently grabbing mainstream attention, partly due to Adult Swim. Rated R for constant Matsumoto cleavage.

Bleach and Naruto.

I only say Naruto because of Avatar.

But, yes, I agree about Bleach. If done right, and stopped before the horrible Hueco Mundo arc, could be ****ing sick.

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Zac Efron for Light Yagami.

No joke... they are like, identical.

I'm actually all for Efron as Light. His "Butter wouldn't melt", squeeky clean image would actually work to his advantage...

L should be an unknown, I think. Somebody with no previous baggage.

 

[GhostPoet]

I'm calling it now...there will be no Shinigami in the film. It will just be a "mystical book"

 

[Silvermoth]

I would rather Nicholas Hoult as Light and Michael Pitt as L.

 

[Project862006]

Warner Bros Taps Shane Black For Japanese Manga 'Death Note'

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has hired Shane Black to direct a live action adaptation of the Japanese manga series Death Note. Black will oversee a script that’s being written by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry, his accomplices on Doc Savage, a drama he'll direct for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Doug Davison and Brian Witten are producing Death Note. Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, Death Note was originally published in Japan and later collected in 12 trade paperbacks that have sold more than 38 million copies worldwide. The protagonist, Light, is a bright student who stumbles across a mystical notebook that has the power to kill any person whose name he writes in it. Light decides to launch a secret crusade to rid the streets of criminals. Soon, the student-turned-vigilante finds himself pursued by a famous FBI criminal profiler known only by the alias L. Death Note is wildly popular in Japan and has been turned into live action and animated films, an animated TV series, novels and vidgames. The trio of live action films were distributed by Warner Bros Japan. Warner Bros acquired the manga rights from Shueisha and previously got a script draft from Charley and Vlas Parlapanides.

Death Note was the favorite manga of Black, who made his directing debut on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the 2005 cult favorite that helped re-launched Robert Downey Jr.’s star. I’ve been covering Hollywood long enough to recall those heady 1990s days when Black became Hollywood’s spec script king. After landing $250,000 for Lethal Weapon, a script he sold right out of UCLA, Black's subsequent scripts sent studios into a frenzy. Black was paid $1.75 million for The Last Boy Scout and then set a record with the $4 million New Line paid for The Long Kiss Goodnight. He and Basic Instinct scribe Joe Eszterhas played a game of can-you-top-this that made for late nights for this journalist, and an excitement that just doesn’t exist in the business that rarely gets competitive enough for studios to bid up anything. One of the reasons Chris Nolan got so much industry respect for Inception was because he gambled on himself and wrote that film on spec.

“I remember how it used to feel, like the entire agency lit up over at Endeavor,” Black told me. “My agent, David Greenblatt, would say, let’s get to work on this, and more and more agents gravitated toward the room and soon the negotiations became like watching a football game.”

It’s hard to imagine any writer in his twenties not being impacted by the money and stature, but it became a stigma. Black became blocked as a writer for several years, getting away from the typewriter to travel, and have a life. “You can imagine people reading that stuff, and getting on the bus to LA with scripts, ready to hit the jackpot, but the idea that specs were lottery tickets wasn't true then and it's not true now. The money was terrific, but I never thought about that. Do you think Chris Nolan was writing Inception and thinking, this will be a good paycheck? To me, it was about, do you care about this enough to carry the ball all the way through, writing alone in the attic and saying, my mom will love this, because that was all you could count on.”
It bothered him back then that other writers didn't see it that way: “A friend nominated me to be part of the writer’s branch of the Motion Picture Academy, which I thought would be nice because I could vote for the Oscars. At that time, you needed two produced credits. I had seven, including the Lethal Weapon films. They said I was 'unsuitable for membership at this point.' I hadn’t personally offended any of these people, and I thought, boy these guys must be really pissed at something. It had to be all that publicity about the money. In their eyes, I was the guy seeking a payday, which I wasn’t. The humorous extension of that is, of course they would have turned down that money, because they had too much integrity. I begged out for awhile, wanting to be known for the work and not how much it cost. Nowadays, I’ve got a girlfriend, a nice place to live. The writing process was so agonizing for me, so lonely, that the addition of a couple people in my life I can trust as writing/producing partners has freed me up tremendously. And when you get older, you stop being such a baby. At 49, I can look at it as a high quality problem and not complain the way I used to.”


Black has also found directing to be a way to have the kind of control he did when he was banging out specs, only it's a lot more fun because he's not alone anymore. That was the great revelation of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
“When I started writing, a lot of the fun and success was not knowing what you weren’t supposed to do," Black said. “But I eventually discovered what I really wanted to do was write specs I could direct. I’ve worked with some great filmmakers, but I can’t imagine at this point in my life wanting to hand off something, since I’ve already thought through how to block it. The key was realizing I could do it, that there was nothing preventing me from doing it. I was writing all these gags with Robert Downey Jr, and it was the most fun I’d ever had. It was as if I’d been on the front lawn digging ditches and somebody opened the door and invited me in for champagne.”
Black isn't sure which project he'll next direct. There are also a couple of spec ideas rolling around in his head, and he wants to revive an old one with his friend Joel Silver, producer of Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black admits he has been happily distracted by studios offers existing properties like Doc Savage, a seminal influence in his childhood days. He's got the same passion for Death Note.
“It’s my favorite manga, I was just struck by its unique and brilliant sensibility,” Black said. “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. Jeff Robinov and Greg Silverman liked that.” Black’s repped by WME and GreenLit Creative.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/warner-bros-taps-shane-black-for-japanese-manga-death-note/

 

[Octoberist]

Me want Doc Savage instead!

 

[Silvermoth]

Please Hollywood don't screw it up! Shane is an awesome director! Don't turn it into a teeny bopper romance thing. I have such a fear of Americanised anime

 

[Project862006]

still want Efron for Light

 

[terry78]

This **** is gonna be crazed.

 

[Asgard]

I remember seeing the Japanese live action version of the manga.

From what I remember the ending of the movies differs from the manga. It was pretty good.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I remember seeing the Japanese live action version of the manga.

From what I remember the ending of the movies differs from the manga. It was pretty good.

Yeah, they do pretty significantly.

I think this has potential to translate to a decent film and actually be marketable to some degree, which is...more or less a first for any anime Hollywood adaptation that I'm aware of. Of course, the problem I foresee is if they do try to dumb down the supernatural elements to be more 'accessible'. It's impossible to cut and still make a film resembling the source at all, but I can see them wanting to stray away from the Shinigami angle, though they could still do that more subtly.

If they decide to make a mainstream film, and not a lower budget fare, I also wonder how people would react to having a film with the lead character being such a degraded, ****** Nietzsche-wannabe human being. Seems relatability and likability are two biggies for the GA, and good Lord, Light is anything but either of those for anyone in their right mind (though maybe the GA isn't in their right mind, who knows).

It's certainly a far more doable task to adapt than, say, Dragonball, but it's going to be tricky to get a good, faithful adaptation through. Not familiar with this guy's work, but he seems to be generally well regarded. Of course, that all depends on if this actually happens and doesn't just drop into development hell.

 

[The Apocalypse]

Such a good chance this will be ruined. Oh well. I can't wait for it anyway.