Good Will Hunting's Gus Van Sant To Join Death Note?

[Joshawott]

The last we heard of the North American live-action remake of Tsugumi Ohba's&nbsp;<strong>Death Note</strong>&nbsp;manga was some years ago, when it was let slip that director Shane Black (<em>Iron Man 3</em>) was fighting Hollywood producers to retain certain elements in the story - notably, the God of Death Ryuk.&nbsp;

That is until a report surfaced on The Tracking Board&nbsp;surfaced this morning, suggesting that the&nbsp;<em>Kiss Kiss Bang Bang&nbsp;</em>director has taken a step back, with&nbsp;Gus Van Sant, the director of critically acclaimed&nbsp;<em>Good Will Hunting</em>&nbsp;taking over the directal duties. The most recent version of the script was written by Shane Black (<em>Lethal Weapon</em>),&nbsp;Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry.

<strong>Warner Bros. have yet to confirm the directoral shift, so until a formal announcement is made, be sure to take this with a pinch of salt.</strong>

The original manga series was illustrated by Takeshi Obata (<em>All You Need Is Kill</em>) and published in Weekly Shonen Jump between 2003 and 2006. Since then, it has spawned a TV anime series which was released in the United Kingdom by Manga Entertainment, as well as three Japanese live-action films that were released by 4Digital Asia. The original manga was published by Viz Media.

 

[Joshawott]

Plot Twist: Gus Van Sant does a "Psycho" and remakes the Japanese Death Note movies frame-by-frame.

 

[ayase]

Death note without Ryuk! As usual your not at all unnecessary remakes of foreign films are brimming with fantastic improvements, Hollywood.

Spoiler

 

[Rosencrantz]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to learn someone has the rights to a popular Manga/Anime to make a movie.

I'm not overly fond of the ending of the 1st movie but overall the two together are pretty solid, and end quite nicely. So I'm unsure what we'd gain from remaking them, other than to create a movie with western actors that won't really have that huge a draw potential. Granted when I described Death Note to some work colleagues the premise had them excited, so there is potential, I just don't see them as being able to pull off a good movie.

 

[Lutga]

I think out of pretty much every title on Manga's books at the moment, this'd make the most sense as a live action show (alongside perhaps Eden of the East)

Dark crime thrillers are totally 'in' right now - I mean, look at how well stuff like The Bridge or True Detective has done. And the premise in Death Note really is brilliant - it just 'works'. As so many people say, it just hooks people from the off.

I hope if this does happen, they don't try and filter out the more fantastical stuff like Ryuk though - it's there for a reason and to try and ignore it misses the point (and a lot of the humour) in Death Note.

Off the bat, I'd have way more hope of this actually happening and being decent than something like a live action Akira or GITS.

 

[Joshawott]

I prefer the Japanese live-action movies to the manga and anime. Truth.

As for the Ryuk comment - back when Black was still attached to direct, I remember him revealing in a press junket for another film of his that Hollywood executives had tried to make him drop Ryuk and Light's downward spiral, but he managed to talk them out of it.

 

[Rosencrantz]

I think out of pretty much every title on Manga's books at the moment, this'd make the most sense as a live action show (alongside perhaps Eden of the East)

Dark crime thrillers are totally 'in' right now - I mean, look at how well stuff like The Bridge or True Detective has done. And the premise in Death Note really is brilliant - it just 'works'. As so many people say, it just hooks people from the off.

I hope if this does happen, they don't try and filter out the more fantastical stuff like Ryuk though - it's there for a reason and to try and ignore it misses the point (and a lot of the humour) in Death Note.

Off the bat, I'd have way more hope of this actually happening and being decent than something like a live action Akira or GITS.

If handled right it could be great, and it's definitely something that has high levels of appeal, but frankly there are few that seem to have the skill needed to make a good adaption

 

[ilmaestro]

I prefer the Japanese live-action movies to the manga and anime. Truth.

As for the Ryuk comment - back when Black was still attached to direct, I remember him revealing in a press junket for another film of his that Hollywood executives had tried to make him drop Ryuk and Light's downward spiral, but he managed to talk them out of it.

What were they actually intending the movie to be about once they took that out? ^^;

 

[Joshawott]

I prefer the Japanese live-action movies to the manga and anime. Truth.

As for the Ryuk comment - back when Black was still attached to direct, I remember him revealing in a press junket for another film of his that Hollywood executives had tried to make him drop Ryuk and Light's downward spiral, but he managed to talk them out of it.

What were they actually intending the movie to be about once they took that out? ^^;

"Mild mannered, genius Christian kid uses the power of God to punish the evil-doers of this world in the name of Christ"?

 

[Rosencrantz]

I prefer the Japanese live-action movies to the manga and anime. Truth.

As for the Ryuk comment - back when Black was still attached to direct, I remember him revealing in a press junket for another film of his that Hollywood executives had tried to make him drop Ryuk and Light's downward spiral, but he managed to talk them out of it.

What were they actually intending the movie to be about once they took that out? ^^;

"Mild mannered, genius Christian kid uses the power of God to punish the evil-doers of this world in the name of Christ"?

Lol, can you imagine the reaction when they figure out Light's technically speaking the bad guy of the show?

 

[Joshawott]

"Mild mannered, genius Christian kid uses the power of God to punish the evil-doers of this world in the name of Christ"?

Lol, can you imagine the reaction when they figure out Light's technically speaking the bad guy of the show?

"B-but he's an honour student with a father in the police and his name is "Light" - he has to be good! Although we will have to change his name to 'Light 'murica Johnson' because we can't have him sharing a name that could be seen as condoning Pearl Harbour".