Warner Bros. has had zero luck getting an adaptation of Akira off the ground, but lesser known has been their years-long effort to adapt another manga classic, Death Note. While names such as Shane Black and Gus Van Sant have been attached at different points, most recently it was Adam Wingard (You're Next) who took over the directing reins, and now the film has found its star.
According to Variety, Paper Towns star Nat Wolff is in final talks for the film, playing a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook that lets him kill anyone whose name he writes in it. As he uses the book to kill dangerous criminals, he's joined by the spirit of death that created the notebook in the first place. He also becomes a target of the police and a genius detective named 'L'. Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata created the manga in 2003, spawning a popular anime and a series of Japanese live-action movies.
Wolff can currently be seen in the film Ashby alongside Mickey Rourke and Emma Roberts. Death Note begins filming next spring from a screenplay by Jeremy Slater, writer of the recent Fantastic Four reboot.
