We haven't heard much about Warner Bros. and director Adam Wingard's (THE GUEST, YOU'RE NEXT) live-action DEATH NOTE moive since THE LEFTOVERS' Margaret Qualley was cast as the female lead opposite THE FAULT IN OUR STARS' Nat Wolff, but producer Roy Lee recently gave an update on the project during a conversation with Collider at a DICE panel. Lee tells the site that Wingard “is currently waiting for us to officially greenlight the movie, but we have a cast in place. I think it’s been reported but I don’t remember yet, I’d have to check the site, so I don’t want to say anything yet. But it’s a movie we’re planning on making this year.”
After being asked about the target audience for the film, Lee replied “It’s definitely for adults. It is zero chance it will be below an R-rating,” and the producer also said that the tone of the movie “will be one of the first manga adaptations that feels very grounded but still has fantastical elements.”
I haven't read the manga series (which follows a student who finds “a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill anyone simply by writing the victim’s name"), or seen any of the previous adaptations, and I'm not one of those people who think every movie needs to be rated R, but I imagine Death Note fans will be happy to hear that the planned film won't have a PG-13 rating. Do you think Warner Bros. and Wingard will do the manga justice?