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Live-Action Death Note Director Wingard Discusses Possible Sequels
posted on by Karen Ressler
Adam Wingard, director of Netflix's live-action Death Note film, explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog on Friday that he kept the film open to a sequel. "Whenever I went to Netflix initially," he said, "I pitched it as at least a two-film series, maybe three." However, he went on to say the first film is designed as a "closed loop" as "sequels are never guaranteed."
On the subject of a potential sequel, Wingard said:
At the end of the day, there are a lot of places to explore where to take Light. And ultimately the series is sort of about almost his downfall as a character. This is sort of the beginning of it or the origin of it. There are definitely lots of places to go, and we know generally where we would take it. Hopefully people will watch it and Netflix will order a sequel. They definitely are ready to. They just need people to watch it.
The film premiered via streaming on Netflix on Friday. It stars Nat Wolff as Light Turner, Keith Stanfield as L, Margaret Qualley as Mia Sutton, Willem Dafoe as the voice of Ryuk, Paul Nakauchi as Watari, and Shea Whigham as James Turner.
In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, teenager Light Yagami finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.
In addition to the 2006 television anime adaptation and tie-in specials, Death Note also received a Japanese live-action film adaptation in 2006, with a sequel titled Death Note: The Last Name, and a spinoff titled L change the WorLd in 2008. A live-action television series adaptation premiered last July, and ended last September. A new film titled Death Note: Light up the NEW world, described as a "forbidden sequel" to the first live-action film, opened in Japan on October 29. The manga also inspired a stage musical by Broadway veterans in 2014. Viz Media released the manga, Japanese live-action films, anime, and other tie-in projects in North America, and Crunchyroll streamed the live-action television series.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter (Aaron Couch)
