Adam Wingard’s Death Note film has added another star. We have just learned that Keith Stanfield (Snowden, pictured below) has been tapped to topline alongside Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley.
The Adam Wingard-helmed adaptation is now being developed at Netflix. And it sounds like the streaming content provider is quite serious about plans to finally get the project off the ground, with designs on shooting this summer.
We know thus far that the project is targeting a hard R-rating. Producer Roy Lee spoke with Collider about the long-discussed adaptation of the horror manga and confirmed that the picture will absolutely be shooting for an R-Rating.
The film was originally slated to shoot last Spring but has been plagued by a series of starts and stops. So, it is great to see this finally getting off the ground. Warner Brothers has had the rights to adapt the property for more than five years. When the studio failed to act within that time frame, Netflix swooped in and acquired the rights.
As we said before, Adam Wingard is attached to direct the US feature film adaptation of the manga. It has already been developed for the big screen in Japan and that adaptation was followed by a sequel.
Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Jason Hoffs and Masi Oka will be producing the adaptation. Doug Davison and Brian Witten are executive producing. Jeremy Slater penned the most recent draft of the script. Shane Black (The Predator) was attached to direct prior to Wingard coming on board. The project is expected to begin lensing later this month. No word on a targeted release date at this point but you can expect that it will be a while before the film is completed.
Plot outline from THR: “The story centers on a student who discovers a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill anyone by writing the victim’s name, who then decides to cleanse the world of whom he deems evil. As the student is tracked by a reclusive police officer, a cat-and-mouse game ensues.”
