The curse of the failure of the live-action adaptation of anime has been finally broken by Netflix’s One Piece series. In collaboration with Matt Owens, Steven Maeda, and Eiichiro Oda himself, Netflix managed to develop a decent live-action of the popular series which is being thoroughly loved by fans. But One Piece is not the only anime among the top 3 that was in the talks for getting a live adaptation.
Back in 2015, it was announced that a Western, live-action Naruto movie adaptation was in the works with Lionsgate reported as being in negotiations with Michael Gracey to direct.
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The Naruto Live-Action Movie That Never Happened
The studio was negotiating the film rights to Masashi Kishimoto’s “Naruto” manga series, which was initially published in 1997. The manga, which has sold over 200 million copies in print, was planned to be made into a film, but it never materialized. The Naruto anime contains 720 episodes (220 from the original series and 500 from Naruto Shippuden).
With the constant criticism and hatred for live-action at the time, it would have been extremely difficult for the Directors and Producers to do honor to such a massive series with only one film.
Why Was The Naruto Live Action Movie Never Made
In an interview with Collider in 2018, Director Michael Gracey talked about how he did not want to do the movie because it would not be a perfect image and adaptation of the series due to many limitations. He said:
“Many Hollywood adaptations of really popular manga series just don’t get it right, and for me what was important was that if I was gonna do Naruto, I wanted to work with Kishimoto and get a script to a stage where he would look at it and be excited about realizing it. Because no one knows the world better than the person who created it. So for me, as it stands, we’re still working on the script. Because until that script is at a level that I’m excited about, I have no interest in destroying an amazing franchise, as has happened before.”
“Everyone knows how precious this property is and to me, it’s incredibly exciting, and I love the work that I’ve gotten to do on it to date. At this stage, no one is going to go into production until we’ve got a script that excites everyone.”
Since the interview, there were no new reports about the movie in production, but recently an article by The Cinemaholic confirmed that there might be rumors for the project to be back on track. According to reliable sources, the project is back in the works after Tasha Huo rewrote the screenplay for Lionsgate. If Huo’s script convinces the producers and Gracey, production on the film will commence.
Source: Variety
