Ask John: Will the Live Action Death Note Come to America?

Question:
Being a fan of the Death Note series since it published its first chapter in Shonen Jump, I am very much looking forward to the live action movie. What is the likelihood that the movie will get a US release? The distributor of the film in Japan is Warner Bros., so do they have worldwide rights as well? What is the chance of a English remake of the story also? Would a lot of that be determined on how well the original does in Japan and how well the Monster remake does here in the US?

Answer:
Since the live action Death Note film adaptation is actually a pair of movies, it seems as though Warner Bros. has a lot of faith in the franchise. At least the first film is being directed by Shusuke Kanako, who has proven himself a successful genre film director with hits like Azumi 2, the 90s Gamera trilogy, and Godzilla: GMK. Warner Bros. apparently expects the movie franchise to be very successful in Japan. The possibility of an international, or more specifically American release may be less certain.

Distributors including Adness, MTI, Panik House, Tartan, Media Blasters, Magnolia, Pathfinder, Kino, Lion’s Gate, Dreamworks, Unearthed Films, and countless others have been aggressively distributing Japanese live action genre pictures on American DVD over the past few years, but I can’t think of a single Japanese picture to have gotten major nationwide theatrical distribution recently. That fact makes it more likely that Death Note may see American home video release, or a very limited American theatrical release, but probably not major nationwide American theatrical distribution.

Over the past few years live action Japanese horror films including Pulse, Ring, Juon, Dark Water, One Missed Call, Chaos, Kansen, Yogen, and Joyurei have all had American re-makes either announced or produced. Prolific Japanese horror movie producer Taka Ichise has been active in Hollywood over the past few years, bringing many of the aforementioned Japanese horror films and directors including Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu to America. It’s obvious that Hollywood is interested in Japanese horror, so the possibility of an original American film based on the Death Note manga, or an American re-make of the live action Death Note film can’t be discounted. The probability of an American re-make, I think, has more to do with the accessibility and qualities of the source material than the success of the original Japanese film or the success of other American re-makes of Japanese horror movies.

In summation, I suspect that the possibility of Death Note getting a major American theatrical release may be small, primarily because there seems to be no mainstream market for films that have an all Japanese cast. But I think that the film series has quite a good chance of being distributed in America in limited theatrical release or on home video. I also suspect that the movie may be prime fodder for an American remake if its Japanese release brings it to the attention of American film makers.