Five years after the last ill-fated Death Note film, Netflix are going ahead with another adaptation
After the success of Stranger Things season 4, showrunners the Duffer Brothers have announced the formation of Upside Down Pictures. Alongside this was announcements of the projects the new company will be working on. This includes a Stranger Things stage play, live-action spin-off, and a series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub‘s 1984 novel The Talisman. Also announced was a live-action series adaptation of Death Note for Netflix.
This comes five years after Netflix’s Death Note movie, which currently sits at a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film spent roughly 10 years in development limbo before its release, and when it did come out it was criticised for being a rushed version of the source material. Despite this, there were plans for a sequel as late as last year. Whether this movie will still release alongside the Duffer Brother’s adaptation or will now be shelved remains to be seen.
Netflix has billed this new adaptation as “an entirely new take”, so at the very least it’ll be unique. And the fact that it is a series will avoid the film’s shortcoming of trying to tell Death Note’s story in the span of a couple hours. However, there is still plenty of room for error, as Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop adaptation showed us.
This news comes off the back of the massive success of Stranger Things’ fourth season. Crossing 1.15 billion hours watched in 28 days, the season has become Netflix’s all-time most popular show in English. So if anyone’s going to take a crack at Death Note, it may as well be the ones with a proven track record of successful shows.
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