Movies
’80s Legend Shane Black Directing ‘Death Note’
The last time I jumped out of my chair was when Mark Romanek was announced to be directing the pilot for “Locke & Key”. This morning I nearly fell on the floor when it was announced that Shane Black – writer of ’80s classics Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2 and Monster Squad, along with The Last Boy Scout and Last Action Hero, director of the hilarious Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and star of Predator – will be helming a U.S. remake of the Japanese classic Death Note. Black will oversee a script that’s being written by Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry. The story centers on a college student who accidentally finds a misplaced “death note,” infusing him with the power to kill merely by writing anyone’s name on the page while picturing the person in his mind. You’ll find more details inside.
Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, Death Note was originally published in Japan and later collected in 12 trade paperbacks that have sold more than 38 million copies worldwide. The protagonist, Light, is a bright student who stumbles across a mystical notebook that has the power to kill any person whose name he writes in it. Light decides to launch a secret crusade to rid the streets of criminals. Soon, the student-turned-vigilante finds himself pursued by a famous FBI criminal profiler known only by the alias L.
Death Note is wildly popular in Japan and has been turned into live action and animated films, an animated TV series, novels and vidgames. The trio of live action films were distributed by Warner Bros Japan. Warner Bros acquired the remake rights from Shueisha and previously got a script draft from Charley and Vlas Parlapanides.
Movies
Warner Bros. Reportedly Developing International ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ Movie With Lee Cronin?!
Last November, Robert Englund had shared his thoughts on why there hasn’t been any movement on the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in the past sixteen years. Englund told Indiewire at the time, “There are so many people involved who have a piece of the action.”
“When Wes passed away, he left an awful lot of rights to his estate,” Englund explained. “He has many many rights that he worked out between character titles and names and plot and things like that. New Line Cinema obviously has a big hand in it. And much of that was surrendered to Ted Turner, then went to Warner Bros. So Warner Bros. has a huge piece of it.”
We bring this up because Englund was spot on. And things have only gotten more interesting since he made those comments last year. We had recently learned that Paramount has joined forces with the Craven Estate to make a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie based on Wes Craven’s original screenplay for the original movie, but here’s where things get real interesting.
While the Craven Estate has the domestic rights to Craven’s original Elm Street screenplay, Warner Bros./New Line actually retains the international rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street. And Puck News reports this week that Warner Bros. is actively developing their own Nightmare on Elm Street movie to compete with the announced Paramount project!
Of course, what’s particularly interesting about this whole mess is that Paramount is actively attempting to buy Warner Bros., a sale which has been delayed until at least next year.
Puck News reports, “Sources with knowledge of the matter think Paramount figured that by the time their movie got underway, the WarnerMount deal would have closed and Warners would be compelled to release the Paramount version overseas. But Warners’ Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy didn’t care for that plan. Now they’re looking to make their own movie, which they can only distribute overseas, and are in talks with Lee Cronin to produce, write, and direct.”
So what we have is a situation where Paramount is attempting to make one Nightmare on Elm Street movie for the domestic market while Warner Bros. is attempting to make an entirely different Elm Street film project for the international market. The obvious solution here is for both entities to work with one another and bring all the rights together to make one proper Elm Street movie that can play in both markets, which could very well end up being the case if the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger does end up taking place late next year.
In the meantime, it seems that WB and Paramount are in a race to beat one another to the punch. While the Paramount project has been officially announced, we must note that the Warner Bros./Lee Cronin project has not. We only have the Puck News report to go on, but for what it’s worth, that report lines up with what Bloody Disgusting has been hearing lately.
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