VIZ Isn’t Fooling Around With This Movie Stuff
While TOKYOPOP movie projects remain in a sort of limbo– announced, but with no specific details like cast or dates –VIZ continues their slower but firmer roll into the movie industry, with Variety now reporting that the new office, VIZ Productions, has brought on former Amblin and Dreamworks executive Jason Hoffs to liaise between Hollywood and VIZ’s Japanese overlords, Shogakukan and Shueisha.
In the article, Hoffs notes a few specific titles. He doesn’t say that they’re being made into movies for sure, but it’ll give you a sense of some of the possibilities…not that many of them are surprising:
- Naruto
- Bleach
- Death Note
- InuYasha
- Monster
- Vampire Knight
Now, it’s kind of tough for me to imagine lengthy series like Naruto, Bleach, or InuYasha– or the complex tapestry of awesome that is Monster –being made into a single live-action movie, and I’m also not sure if the movie studios would be confident enough to commit to doing a series of movies. I suppose an arc or two from Naruto or Bleach would be doable in a single movie, though.
And I don’t have a hard time imagining movie studios liking the concept. First off, manga is big with that ever-desirable market of pre-teen and teenage kids (mm, delicious disposable income). Second, do we really have any good action movie series right now that are geared more towards that young audience? Maybe it’s just because of my own age, but it seems like The Mummy and the latest slew of comic book movies are much more designed for the 20-30 crowd.
And third, let’s face it: they’re probably getting tired of the endless adaptations of young adult fantasy that are being churned out in hopes of catching the Harry Potter crowd. It’s not hard to imagine that tween-friendly shounen action flicks might be the ever-sought “Next Big Thing.”
Which brings us to Vampire Knight, a darker-themed series but still very much aimed at tween girls. I mean, The Twilight Saga is doing pretty damn well– why not VK? But since Twilight Saga is already being adapted into movies, might it be too late for VK to hit the mainstream market without seeming like a knock-off (even though VK started before Twilight– barely; January 2005 versus October 2005, respectively).
…Well, that’s all speculation on my part. No doubt we’re ALL looking forward to hearing whatever official news we get in the future.
I always thought Monster would work in a movie format. It almost can split cleanly in twain… instant sequel.
Live action Naruto or Bleach is troubling. I guess mostly because the first movie is most likely the origin story, and I don’t really need to see the origin all over again.
Now, different takes with completely different characters might be interesting. Kind of hard with Naruto, what with his name being the title, but Bleach could do a completely different story with shinigami and humans in America, and same with Death Note.
InuYasha is never going to die, is it?
I could easily see a Bleach live-action, the start & SS arc could work itself {with changes} into one movie.
It being any good is another story..
The Mummy? That’s a strange example :P
Um, out of the all the titles in that list, Monster is simply the best candidate. It has the movie mood and theme and the setting is just perfect for a mystery live-action/movie. The story blow the rest away too.
Okay, there are two reasons why I’m a bit surprised at the idea of a Monster movie:
1) the series has a LOT of characters, and none of them are throwaways– they’re all tied into the overall story as well as being very fleshed out, which would make an adaptation into a single film difficult.
2) The manga has always been compared by western readers to the film The Fugitive– such comparisons would be beyond inevitable if a live-action film was made.
That said, I would line up for a week to watch a live-action film of it. @_@
I’m pretty sure that New Line Cinema bought rights to a film version of Monster back in 2005 or 2006; IMDB lists the project as in pre-production/ announced status. I have no idea if they’re going to try and cram 18 volumes of manga into one single movie (which will completely ruin the point of making a Monster movie and will most likely involve Tenma mowing people down with an assault rifle or something–which would be awesome, but it also wouldn’t be Monster), or if they’re going to split it up over three or four movies (like they’re doing with 20th Century Boys). Hope springs eternal, but I’m already mad at New Line for whatever mysterious things they did to The Golden Compass, as I still can’t bring myself to watch that.
I’m a huge anime/manga fan AND a huge Twlight fan. And that was the first time I’ve seen one of the anime/manga sites mention the Twilight Saga. I do foresee that if this movie is a success (and it will), then Hollywood will hop on the vampire bandwagon once again (it happens about every 10 years).
Ash: I’d have to give credit to Topless Robot for reminding me of Twilight back here.