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So this is actually good news because Michael Gracey seems to understand how fans feel about live action adaptations. Gracey is aware of the hate towards movies such as Dragon Ball Evolution, Death Note, Ghost in the Shell and Avatar The Last Airbender.
Is good to hear that Hollywood is listening for once. This is great news and much more hope for the live action Naruto movie. This means that they will keep the fans in mind and be conscious about how the story SHOULD be told and not steer away from the manga. Michael Gracey has a good mentally.
That being said, this also means that we wont be seeing Naruto live action movie anytime soon. Most likely sometime way ahead in the future like 2025. By that time most fans will be married with kids. I am already balding and I have been a Naruto fan since high school. (29 years old now)
Anime live actions cannot be approached the same way that Marvel and DC movies have been approached. If you take a look at movies like Captain America the first Avenger and even the Avengers movies. Many things have been added, taken and removed from the original comic book story to fit a 2 hour action movie. It makes sense and its worth it because of its nature.
However, when you have a 500 episode anime and to have to shrink it into 2 hours, its a different story. The difference is that Marvel and DC always recreate their characters and stories. I mean there are many Spiderman comic books that retell the story slightly different. With an anime, its linear. So its not a good idea for the directors to just do whatever they want.
I mean where are they going to start if they were to make a Naruto live action movie. In the Chunin Exams. When Orochimaru attacked the village. In the Sabusa water village arc.
That is the problem. They can simplify the story and probably turn it into a trilogy. It could work. However, I don’t mine waiting a few more years before it comes out so that it can be a movie that is true to the manga true to the story and true the to nature of the characters. And please god of mighty don’t choose Shia Labeouf to play Naruto for god sakes.
This is a poster for the Naruto stage play
The funny thing about the anime community is that we have this radar that can detect if a movie will suck or not and 9 times out of 10 it does suck. I guess is an ability we gained after the Dragon Ball live action movie broke our hearts. Such high expectations and such a disappointment. Same with the Last Airbender movie. It sucked.
The Naruto fan base is so huge, that it could rival that of Dragon Ball Z and One Piece. The entire the movie by simply not showing up to the theaters. I mean that is what happened to the Ghost in the Shell movie. The only people that would go and see the movie would be those that are not really fans of Naruto but is the fans that make the movie a success so why not make for them (are you listening Hollywood)
Anyways. It looks like we reached step one. Having a director that understands the fans. Michael Gracey seems to be that man so far now lets hope the have a good script, good actors and they better read that Naruto manga from left to right….excuse me I mean from right to left..
Asian Actors or Western Actors
If you remember the Live Action Ghost In the Shell movies with Scarlet Johansson. That movie was actually really good and well done but because it was white washed (Caucasian female protagonist) the movie flopped and did not make a profit. The upcoming Naruto live action movie can suffer from this.
At first Shia Labeouf was being considered for the part of Naruto. Now I think the actor is cool but please get an Asian guy to play Naruto. Hopefully they get a Asian lead to play the part and not a western actor. Hollywood makes a lot of excuses as to why they choose a western actor for the part.
In the Detective Pikachu movie, everyone was okay with the lead being a non-Asian actor because the movie was focused on the Pokemon more than the lead actor. Anyone can be a Pokemon trainer. However, Naruto is based on Japanese culture and history. The Ninjas and the Japanese Folklore. The Sharingans are actually a Shinto symbol, the nine tails is actually part of a Japanese mythology as well as the other tailed beast. The Japanese believed that a fox had the ability to shape-shift. Also Jiraya, Orochimaru and Tsunade are all based on Japanese mythological characters whom each had their own magic.
This is why we need an Asian cast. Naruto really is an epic fantasy. Set in a fictional east Asian style world. That being said, its okay to throw in some western actors since in the Naruto World you have Ninjas like the Raikage of Kumogakure( Hidden Cloud Village). Actually many cloud Ninjas are tan or dark skin like Omoi of the Cloud Village.
This is one way that the Naruto Live Actin can fail. If Hollywood decides to make the movie with western actors, anime fans will do everything in their power to take it down and make sure the movie is unsuccessful much like the Netflix’s Death Note. Keep in mind that Naruto has a HUGE following. Not as big as Dragon Ball but getting close to its fandom.
So we can trust Michael Gracey to write a good script that wont steer from the manga and the next thing is make sure Hollywood works with Asian actors. Lets see what happens.
May 2020 Update
So it looks like Lionsgate is working with Summit to look for the cast of the Naruto live action. They are focusing on an Asian cast because Naruto is based on Japanese culture and its mythology. So it looks like Hollywood has learned from their past mistakes or at least starting to learn from their past mistakes. It is off to a good start and they have made a good decision to go with an Asian cast. Despite of Naruto having blonde hair and looking like a Scandanavian person, you have to remember that it is a fictional world and hey, who knows. In the world of Naruto, some Asian people are born with blonde hair.
The Naruto live action movie was announced about 2015 to 2016. Ever since then we never really heard much about until now. It looks like they are really proceeding on making this happen, finally. One of the motivating factors of Lionsgate moving on with the Naruto adaptation is to compete with Netflix in the anime game. It is in their best interest to not ruin this movie in which case, they should get some feedback from the fans. Not too much feedback. Just enough to not ruin the movie.
Thus far it is said that the movie will focus on Naruto who wants to become a strong ninja.
There is no mentioned about Naruto becoming a Hokage. Maybe they don’t want to use the word “Hokage” since most people wont understand what it means. Hope you like this news. We will be updating the article when something new comes up.
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