Death Note and Shane Black--a title and name I never would’ve expected to see together. Deadline says the one-time “King of the Spec” has been penciled in to direct a feature adaptation of the internationally-popular manga series that’s spawned, among many things, a riveting long-form anime and a handful of incredibly cheesy live-action J-horror movies. As it happens, I’ve actually covered Death Note extensively at Anime Vice. It is, without a doubt, one of the most white-knuckle detective thrillers I’ve seen in any medium, maintaining an impressive, near-constant level of tension throughout the show's entirety.
The short synopsis is that it’s about a high school valedictorian, Light Yagami, who randomly receives a terribly-powerful notebook from a bored demon. Whoever's name Light writes in this book will die instantly and so, faster than you can say "megalomania," he proclaims himself a “god” who judges and executes criminals all over the world. A master detective known only as "L" arises to oppose him and many great battles of wits and tense cat & mouse games ensue between the two.
That’s my short version. Here’s my long version, if you're interested.
While I love the series, I’ll be the first to admit that there are elements that simply wouldn’t work in American live-action (they certainly didn’t work in Japanese live-action.) Even if you forgo some leaps in disbelief-suspension that Japanese audiences seem to have less problems with than American ones do, there's the glaring, garish matter of Light's fearsome demon pal looking like a clownish Hot Topic regular.
can't wait until they make the American version!
woooooo
I enjoyed it quite a lot. The middle section of the series though was really boring for me though. The last act made up for it. (Talking about the anime version)
Nevertheless, the anime was very well done, have not caught the manga though.
That is all.
That's actually a really brilliant idea.
Take american actors. Have a very smart boy who all of a sudden has the power to kill people by writing in a notebook (getting rid of the stupid clown demons would probably be a good idea) and make it one of those suspenseful mind battles like the whole anime series was.
Don't call it death note, call it anything else. Just have the movie be inspired by death note.
The idea for the anime and manga are great, but we all know it won't directly translate into a movie. So don't directly do it.
However, I doubt this would work as a US live action movie. It certainly could work better than the western produced live action Evangelion or Akira movie ideas that have been floating around, but somehow I know they'll screw it up. Like it was Dragonball Evolution.
But really, I just want to go rewatch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang