Okay so, an American remake of the Death note films (if the first one gets enough attention to bother with the second, which I kind of doubt) is in the works. By Vertigo.
From
this hive of scum and villainy:
[Blah blah blah Viz is setting up a production studio blah blah blah
live action things like Naruto/Bleach/Vampire Knight/Monster etc. (WHAT? No, not a good what. Just ... WHAT.) blah blah.]
Post author finishes up with with a surprisingly naive statement:
I wonder how this will affect Vertigo's remake plans? Personally, I hope this means that someone at VIZ who is very familiar with the original manga will be overseeing the movie project and the writers will be changed for some more capable ones.B-because obviously Vertigo's writers are somehow incapable of properly botching an already botched franchise? For all we know, Vertigo's writers could be massive Death Note fans, and none of us would be the wiser. Face it, fans, the project is fucked from the start. You won't be happy, America's Serious Movie Audience won't give two shits about
a notebook that kills people, hello. It's still less horrifying than a Naruto live action thing, but ... well. I think they could do quite well with
Monster, though, given any sort of talent at all; think Zodiac, which despite all its flaws was an admittedly decent movie. AND IT MIGHT EVEN RESOLVE ITSELF AT THE END, KIDS.
And thus I spent my ire in a huge tl;dr post over there, which will likely further serve to castrate me from the mob and earn me those 'oh, you're one of
those fans' sort of undercurrent.
I don't know; I'm really fed up by this loud voice of fandom screeching
America can never do it as well as the Japanese ... though we should rather be substituting English language works for America, because it seems a majority of Japanese-oriented fandoms are under the impression that everything in English
comes from the US. [Protip: DN remake haters: Vertigo is
British.] Now, I don't know about you guys, but I kind of came to the conclusion that a good majority of Japanese movies suck
balls. Of that good majority, the acting is terrible, the plots are overdone and trite, the movie suffers for the low budget, and a million other things that I could say if I took the time to care. This isn't to say that there isn't quality cinema coming from the islands, but Made in Japan isn't a seal of quality on entertainment or anything else. Most of American movies these days suck, too, but ... such is life. It's not endemic to one country or another, honestly guys.
Also, Orlando Bloom was in my Sears this weekend. I, uh, didn't recognize him, though it seems several of my co-workers were more on top of their game (and their camera phones). Weird, huh? Apparently, the guy is buying property in the area -- good luck, dude, these teenage girls around here are
ravenous.