Quick, what's the highest-grossing anime film of all-time? No, it's not Pokémon, or Ghost in the Shell, or Akira. It's Makoto Shinkai's body-swapping drama, Your Name, with over $355M worldwide. The film was obviously a huge smash and did well here, too, when it went to wide release earlier this year, but you know we need something to call our own. And so J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot is teaming up with Toho Co. to adapt Your Name as a live-action feature.
Writing the script will be Eric Heisserer, the Oscar-nominated writer of Arrival. He's a solid choice for another sci-fi love story, this one centering on a teenage boy and girl from different parts of Japan who learn they are swapping bodies. As they live one another's lives, they also set out to cross time and space to meet and avert a major disaster.
Here's a particularly prescient quote from my review: "Don't worry, some American producer will find a perfectly suitable indie band for the live-action remake someday. It's sad but more likely to happen because of the film's massive success everywhere but here. I don't envy whoever takes that project on."
Dammit, I hate being right all of the time. There will need to be some serious cultural changes to the story and disentangling of the plot, which gets confusing in the final act. I'll be curious to see who they get as director, but I'm guessing it will be someone who is on the rise and has worked with teenaged stars before. Maybe someone like Power Rangers director Dean Israelite? Just throwing a name out there. [THR]
