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Naruto Live-Action Hollywood Confirmed, w/ Lionsgate and Michael Gracy

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GravityInsanity said:
Hate this idea. They better at least make all the characters Japanese and not the usual Hollywood bullshit of making everyone white.
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If everyone needs to be Japanese, it might have been better for them to sell the rights to a Japanese company. The people selling the rights aren't that concerned about it.
 
If they make it a series of films, get a decent script and director, get a diverse cast (there's no way they'll hire just Asian actors, but it shouldn't be all white either) give it a solid budget but keep the first movie small and focused, and rewrite the plot because the story of Naruto is a dumpster fire, then it could work. Maybe.
 
CrunchyFrog said:
Then just say that and don't use white hetero male like some kind of pejorative.
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How was that even remotely pejorative ?

This Michael Gracy dude probably does not even have anything to do with it... it is just execs having a bias while choosing directors.
 
ArgyleReptile said:
Selma Hayek for Tsunade.
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The Zabuza arc could work, tbh. Good antagonists, intense fights, could make something special.

But this will not work, there's like no chance this becomes actual good cinema.
 
I hope they whitewash the hell out of it so Hollywood doesn't ruin any Asian actors' career from this abomination.
 
Hollywood has been trying to make anime adaptations happen for awhile, only a matter of time.
 
JPLMD said:
I hope they whitewash the hell out of it so Hollywood doesn't ruin any Asian actors' career from this abomination.
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Lol it's not like Hollywood would be pointing guns at Asian actors to force them to appear in the film or something... If an Asian actor appears in it, it would be fully voluntary.
 
Hahahahahsaaa...

Does Hollywood have such short collective memories or are they just banking that their target audience does?

This is going to fail so hard.

I hope they make all forms of Chakra production into some twighlight-esque glitter.
 
Well, Edge of Tomorrow was good and Ghost in the Shell looks decent, so maybe Hollywood is leaving the DragonBall Evolution days behind?

Then again, I don't see how they do any of the arcs of this show any good given all the characters and content. You'd pretty much have to start with the intro to the Chunin exams to make a coherent product in 2 hours.
 
They will either swap characters' names or this whole movie is going to be pronounced very, very awkwardly

EDIT: If this has any chance of being good, I really hope they don't just skip straight to the big shit and instead start small with the Zabuza/Haku arc and actually cast a trans actress as Haku. That'd be dope.

But who am I kidding. It's gonna be terrible.
 
GravityInsanity said:
Hate this idea. They better at least make all the characters Japanese and not the usual Hollywood bullshit of making everyone white.
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But who am I kidding. Dragonball Evolution and The Last Airbender is a thing.
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That would be dope, but as I said before it would defeat the purpose for Hollywood to license these properties if they were going to use an all asian cast.
 
If they dont run like in the anime then they can very well fuck off.

Actually even before that, if the movie gets whitewashed they can fuck off too.
 
I think itll be good! Its actually adaptable unlike DBZ which scared off a lot of dumb reactionary production companies from anime films

And no the cast doesnt have to be asian at all since it doesnt take place in Japan. What asian has blue eyes and blond hair
 
FluxWaveZ said:
Maybe... anime doesn't need live-action adaptations.
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I enjoyed the live-action anime/manga adaptations of Old Boy,Rurouni Kenshin, Guyver, Azumi, Gantz, Ichi the Killer, Initial D, Casshern, Mushishi, Battle Royale, City Hunter and a ton more.

Keep em coming.
 
blakep267 said:
The first movie would cover the backstory of the nine tailed fox, Naruto beginning, team five, first mission against zabuza and ending with that arc and teaser of the chuunin exams

2nd movie would be chuunin exams up until the final tournament.

3rd movie would be the end of the tournament, then maybe finding jiraiya and Tsunade

4th would be the Sasuke retrieval arc
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There are two issues with this:

1) You need to condense a little. Ending the second movie before the final tournament is a terrible idea. There would be almost no plot to the movie if you did that, just vague hints at a plot that will theoretically be coming later. It would be like ending Empire Strikes Back right before Luke arrives at Cloud City. Make the second movie the entire chuunin exam through the fight with Gaara, then the third movie can be a first act of finding Tsunade, a second act of the Sasuke retrieval arc, and then a big finale of Naruto vs. Sasuke, which is what the entire trilogy would have been leading up to. That's not really that much to cover when you consider you're going to likely blast through most of the minor fights. They can be done in a matter of minutes rather than hours like in the show, and you wouldn't lose anything vital to the story. Even something like Gaara vs. Rock Lee can be done in a fraction of time compared to the anime and still be awesome.

2) It's almost impossible to actually do a series of movies like this and stay true to Naruto. Your actors are going to age out of their roles faster than you could possibly get them out, especially if you wait to see if the first film is a commercial success before committing to the sequels. These kids are all supposed to be 12 and 13 years old through the entire stretch of time covered in those movies. It's not a Harry Potter thing where the characters are supposed to be a year older in each movie anyway. So you're either going to have to change the characters' ages in the first place (which kind of defeats a major concept of the series as a whole), re-cast regularly as you keep making movies (which will be confusing for audiences), or just pretend that these now obviously young adult actors are actually still pre-pubescent children by the later movies.

Also, for the whitewashing comments, Naruto is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy. How can you possibly whitewash that? Regardless, Naruto takes place in a fictional world, and I think you can mix up the diversity of the cast quite a bit. There should definitely still be a heavy Asian presence in the cast, and I would say the Uchihas at least ought to be Asian, but there's no reason you can't mix things up a bit. The series isn't set in Japan and has a wide variety of peoples and cultures, and you could make the argument that that's true even within the Leaf itself as it was originally founded as a union between rival clans. Gaara and the other Sand nin could even be vaguely Middle Eastern, for example (although people would howl that the "villains" are brown if you did that, even if Gaara would have an ashen complexion regardless).
 
What did he mean by this? said:
I think itll be good! Its actually adaptable unlike DBZ which scared off a lot of dumb reactionary production companies from anime films

And no the cast doesnt have to be asian at all since it doesnt take place in Japan. What asian has blue eyes and blond hair
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I mean an asian person can wear blue eye contacts and dye their hair blonde like any other actor would do to fit the part.
 
MetatronM said:
There are two issues with this:

1) You need to condense a little. Ending the second movie before the final tournament is a terrible idea. There would be almost no plot to the movie if you did that, just vague hints at a plot that will theoretically be coming later. It would be like ending Empire Strikes Back right before Luke arrives at Cloud City. Make the second movie the entire chuunin exam through the fight with Gaara, then the third movie can be a first act of finding Tsunade, a second act of the Sasuke retrieval arc, and then a big finale of Naruto vs. Sasuke, which is what the entire trilogy would have been leading up to. That's not really that much to cover when you consider you're going to likely blast through most of the minor fights. They can be done in a matter of minutes rather than hours like in the show, and you wouldn't lose anything vital to the story. Even something like Gaara vs. Rock Lee can be done in a fraction of time compared to the anime and still be awesome.

2) It's almost impossible to actually do a series of movies like this and stay true to Naruto. Your actors are going to age out of their roles faster than you could possibly get them out, especially if you wait to see if the first film is a commercial success before committing to the sequels. These kids are all supposed to be 12 and 13 years old through the entire stretch of time covered in those movies. It's not a Harry Potter thing where the characters are supposed to be a year older in each movie anyway. So you're either going to have to change the characters' ages in the first place (which kind of defeats a major concept of the series as a whole), re-cast regularly as you keep making movies (which will be confusing for audiences), or just pretend that these now obviously young adult actors are actually still pre-pubescent children by the later movies.

Also, for the whitewashing comments, Naruto is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy. How can you possibly whitewash that? Regardless, Naruto takes place in a fictional world, and I think you can mix up the diversity of the cast quite a bit. There should definitely still be a heavy Asian presence in the cast, and I would say the Uchihas at least ought to be Asian, but there's no reason you can't mix things up a bit. The series isn't set in Japan and has a wide variety of peoples and cultures, and you could make the argument that that's true even within the Leaf itself as it was originally founded as a union between rival clans. Gaara and the other Sand nin could even be vaguely Middle Eastern, for example (although people would howl that the "villains" are brown if you did that, even if Gaara would have an ashen complexion regardless).
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1) the chuunin stuff is way too much for one movie. You have the first exam, introducing orochimaru, forest of death, prelim tournament, Naruto first encounter with Joraiya, then the final tournament and the invasion. That's too much. You could end the second movie with the prelim tournament and have the third movie open up with Naruto meeting Joraiya and learning summons

2) there can be a slight timeskip(maybe a year) between the zabuza arc and the chuunin exams. You shoot movies 2-3 at the same time and have another shorter skip between the sasuke retrieval arc


lightskintwin said:
My point is just because a character is depicted as having blonde hair and blue eyes in this manga/anime doesn't necessarily mean they have to be white in this fantasy Japanese world.
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There's a difference though. ichigo kurasaki is a Japanese guy with colorful hair. It's set in our world. Our any various high school anime where people may "look" white. They are Japanese because it takes place in Japan. Naruto is in a fictional world where there are multiple races. It's not homogenous Japan. Also we know that there are immigrant races that live in konoha.
 
As far as diversity goes, you have be realistic. This is hollywood. They weren't going to greenlight the movie if it meant that everyone was going to be Asian. Expect a diverse cast (including some black and hispanic characters where there were none previously), but Naruto will almost certainly be white or at best, half-Asian.

styl3s said:
I enjoyed the live-action anime/manga adaptations of Old Boy,Rurouni Kenshin, Guyver, Azumi, Gantz, Ichi the Killer, Initial D, Casshern, Mushishi, Battle Royale, City Hunter and a ton more.

Keep em coming.
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Yikes. And I loved the Guyver as a kid.
 
blakep267 said:
There's a difference though. ichigo kurasaki is a Japanese guy with colorful hair. It's set in our world. Naruto is in a fictional world where there are multiple races. It's not homogenous Japan. Also we know that there are immigrant races that live in konoha.
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I'm not in disagreement, but there are several ways of depicting that even if you were to make the cast all asian is my point within this fantasy world.
 
I need to find the quote, but I believe Kishimoto said if he were to give the characters nationalities, Sasuke would be Asain, Naruto would be American, and Sakura would be European.
 
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