Death Note Gets a Director

Warner Bros had the rights to create a Death Note movie for years and seemingly out of nowhere, news breaks that Shane Black is officially directing. For people unfamiliar with Shane Black and/or Death Note this is huge news for a number of reasons.

Death Note is an immensely popular manga, anime, and Japanese movie series in which high school student Light Yagami discovers an unusual notebook called the "Death Note". When the book's owner writes the name of the person and the way they die, it comes true shortly after. Starting slowly, Light begins to test the book and eventually uses it in an effort to rule as a god over earth.

Shane Black's name may sound familiar because he's known for writing the Lethal Weapon series, as well as a number of other movies including The Monster Squad. Most recently, he was responsible for writing and directing the fantastic, but under-appreciated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Robert Downey Jr in 2005 (really, if you haven't seen this one, you should check it out).

Black will be directing a script from Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry, and I'm really interested in seeing how they will handle this adaptation. It would be really difficult for them to make a single film out of the material, so I'd expect they will set this up to be a trilogy of movies. I'm also interested in seeing how they handle some of the story elements for american audiences, as this would not follow your standard plot setup that your average audience is used to (especially L's plotline).

As you can tell from the news posted so far, I'm really excited about this news, as I have loved the Death Note series for a while now. I know that anime isn't for everyone, and it took a while for me to get into it as well, but there really are some great stories out there and this one is worth checking out, whether you are reading the Manga, watching the Anime, or watching the current live action films.

This is one of those films that has the potential to be a real game changer if done right, so we'll be keeping a close eye on casting developments and posting them as they occur.