WB Brings 'Death Note' to U.S.

Warner Brothers have decided to bring the popular Japanese Manga series Death Note to American cinemas. Variety reports that the studio has acquired the rights to the 13 volume manga comic and will adapt it into a live-action film. WB has hired Charley Parlapanides and his brother Vlas to adapt the material from the first three volumes of Death Note written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

The story follows Light Yagami who is a highly intelligent high school student that strongly resents the crime and corruption of the world. Yagami comes across a notebook, called a "Death Note" that has the ability to kill any person so long as their name is written in it and the writer can imagine the person in their mind. Yagami comes to meet the Death Note's previous owner Ryuk a death god. Light Yagami sets out with an agenda to reap the world of evil and corruption by the use of the notebook only to find himself hunted down by a International detective known as L.

This isn't the first time WB has created a Death Note film. Warner Brothers Pictures has made three Japanese language films through their Japan division. This new American version will not be at all taken from the Japanese films, but exclusively the magna series itself. It will be interesting to see how dark this film will be considering most of it's fans are teenagers, I doubt WB will push for anything higher than a PG13 rating, which leads me to believe "Death Note" could be a royal waste of time. Although, kids and teens love the books and the anime series so no doubt this could be a huge franchise for Warner Bros.

What say you? Have you read this popular Magna series? Would you see a Death Note movie? Strikeback...