Back in 2011, it was announced that legendary action-comedy scribe Shane Black (LETHAL WEAPON, THE LAST BOY SCOUT) has become attached to Warner Bros.’ adaptation of the Japanese manga DEATH NOTE. Since that time, he has busied himself with a little project called IRON MAN 3, which will be released next week. Now that he’s finally ready to walk away from Tony Stark, it’s time to choose his next project. But will it be DEATH NOTE?
Well, according to this morsel of news… maybe. During a chat with Bleeding Cool, Black was asked what’s on his plate, and he revealed this much about the thriller in question:
Right now I’ve got this thing at Warner Bros. called Death Note that I like a lot. It’s a Japanese Manga that’s very tense and really cool.
Okay, so not the most Earth-shattering news you’ve ever encountered. What it provides, however, is the knowledge that DEATH NOTE hasn’t completely fallen off of Black’s radar and may in fact be his next movie (he’s also still mulling over a DOC SAVAGE flick).
Created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and manga artist Takeshi Obata, DEATH NOTE dealt with:
Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the “Death Note”, dropped on Earth by a shinigami (a god of death) named Ryuk. The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know, by writing the name in the notebook while picturing their face. The series centers around Light’s attempt to create and rule a world “cleansed of evil” as “God” using the notebook, and the efforts of a detective known as L to stop him.