I wake up from a short catnap to discover that not only have in-costume pictures of Andrew Garfield as Spider-man and Chris Evans as Captain America emerged online, but that Shane Black has been hired to direct the live-action U.S. adaptation of Death Note for Warner Bros.

If you do not know who Shane Black is, let me give you a refresher course. This is the man who wrote the action classic Lethal Weapon (1987), one of my childhood faves The Monster Squad (1987), the original screenplay for Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), cult fave The Last Boy Scout (1991), the guilty pleasure The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and the criminally under-appreciated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) with pre-Iron Man Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer. Whatever Black chooses to do with Death Note, it’s sure to have some great action sequences and some snappy dialogue. He certainly seems to be a fan of the source material:

“It’s my favorite manga, I was just struck by its unique and brilliant sensibility,” Black tells MTV.com, “What we want to do is take it back to that manga, and make it closer to what is so complex and truthful about the spirituality of the story, versus taking the concept and trying to copy it as an American thriller. Jeff Robinov and Greg Silverman liked that.”

Previously, the manga has been adapted in Japan as an anime, a two-part film series (1, 2), and a spin-off featuring fan-favorite character, L. Time will tell as to whether or not the cartoonish Shinigami will remain in the American version. I guess it’s only a matter of time before the “Zac Efron as Light” fan-casting begins.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Death Note, Manga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.