 Above is the newly released poster advertising the stage-show musical of Death Note. The rumours were correct the other day, Kira will be played by Kenji Urai and Hayato Kakizawa.
Tickets are now being sold for Musical Death Note.
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 Drew Nelson, with child actor Ben Hyland, in TV drama The Strain It seems that Drew Nelson has a thing for portraying characters named Matt. The voice actor behind Matt Jeevas, in the Death Note anime English dub, is back on our screens in vampiric drama The Strain. He plays Matt Sayles there. The Strain is an old school horror take on the vampire legend. No-one sparkles here. They don't even conform to the dark sexual stereotype, once described by Stephen King as, 'I will rape you with my mouth and you shall enjoy it'. But what did you expect, when it's Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage, The Devil's Backbone, Hellboy) behind the show? The Strain's vampires are brutal, vicious, bestial beings. Their coming is treated as a contagion destined to destroy the USA, worse than, say, the Black Death suddenly arriving. The initiation emphasis is on containment, science, warring governmental and emergency departments, and autopsies. But this isn't merely ebola or AIDS erupting upon the population. This is something different, and these vampires have several centuries on everyone else when it comes to playing the game. Like Matt in Death Note, Matt Sayles is an everyman character. He's there to support his family and friends, but not from a position in which to make many decisions. He's not the president, nor a high-flying medic; he's just a bloke who works in Sears. He's us - the ordinary individual caught up in a world gone mad.
The first time you see Matt, in episode one, he's being asked to look after a car. Chaotic Neutral once again, that doesn't go quite as protagonist Dr Ephraim Goodweather might have hoped. The second time we spot Matt, it's obvious that he's got the girl. If you want more, there are a few interviews with Drew Nelson about playing Matt in The Strain:
Here's wishing Drew Nelson all the luck in the world, with his role in another high profile show, from all the Death Note gang here. And thanks once again for our interview back in the day!  A couple of weeks ago, I revealed that Death Note artist Takeshi Obata will be at Salón del Manga de Barcelona. Now it seems that US fans can start bouncing around with as much excitement as the Spanish.
It's been announced that Obata will be at New York Comic Con too! As the screenshot states, the convention runs from October 9th - 12th, 2014, at the Javits Center, NYC. Obata will be appearing in panels on the Thursday and Friday (9th and 10th). So break out your Death Note cosplays and don't forget to film it all for those of us an ocean away!  Amazon Instant Video have been busy Tweeting that the Death Note live action movie is the best, according to a Japanese audience poll.
But that's all I know. There's no other news source coming up in the search results, and Amazon didn't respond to my Tweet asking which movie, which comic and which audience poll. And that link merely takes you to Amazon Instant Video, with Death Note already embedded as the search. If that list is anything to go by, then the 'live-action film' thus lauded is actually season one of the anime. Oh well! No arguments here.
Though Hayato Kakizawa is billed everywhere as an actor in musicals, it's a little harder to track down which ones. I've found four recent live action movies (Kaiji 2, Akko-Chan: The Movie, Koi and Bad Boys J: The Movie), but none which involve hearing his tonsils vibrate to the big notes. He does seem to have the dancing part covered though. Hayato Kakizawa portrayed Romeo in a 2013 Toyko ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet. Hold on! Victory! I've found him in the title role of Melchior in a 2009 musical production of Spring Awakening. Does THIS scream possible Kira to you? As always, you'll get more when I've got it. Enjoy!
As a quick addendum to yesterday's blog, about Death Note Mello's voice actor David Hurwitz in War Horse, I've found another promotional video.
In this one, David is interviewed for his local BC Buzz. No mention of Mello, as the focus is purely on the show not the actor, but it's amusing to close your eyes and pretend that's Mello talking. Or maybe that's just me...  David Hurwitz (Actor) Have You Ever Been Mellow? asks the old much covered song. Knock a 'w' off the end and David Hurwitz could answer with an unequivocal YES! Nor is the Death Note voice actor - who provided the dulcet tones of Mello in the English anime version - ever likely to forget it. If his resume is anything to go by, Dave Hurwitz is generally more at home on a theatrical stage than in a voice acting studio. He is currently touring with the National Theatre of Great Britain, bringing Michael Morpurgo's poignant story War Horse to life in theatres throughout Europe and North America. David plays the antagonist Billy. For Death Note fans unfamiliar with the story, there are more than a few parallels with Mello here. Billy ends up second best to his cousin Albert. He's also the architect of various schemes, whispered into the ear of his own father (rather than a Godfather), designed to regain the upper hand. I won't spoil it by providing details of the ending, but let's just say that both Mello and Billy were in world wars, and their Fate has strong collations too. I believe that's David at 1.16 (right hand side) playing Billy in War Horse. It was in his capacity as a theatrical actor in War Horse that David was recently interviewed by Broadway World. The conversation soon turned towards Mello, and how that role has never really gone away. Not that David seems too bothered about that! 'I have random people write me fan letters," he told journalist Kathy Strain, "and people have come up to me after shows and want to take pictures with me because they know me from Death Note. It's pretty cool." David also discussed how he landed the role of Mello (there's a 'large animation voice-over scene' in the actor's native Vancouver, Canada, and his agent had good enough connections in it to get him the part), and how challenging the acting could be (director in another country; David having to match his English language voice to anime lips designed to mirror Japanese dictation; his cue being three beeps rather than another actor's voice). He knows precisely why Mello has remained his best-known role to date too. It's all to do with Death Note's 'huge following and fan base online'. David Hurwitz gleefully added, 'I'm really glad that I am able to put it on my resume.' For those who have been living under a rock, here is David Hurwitz voicing Mello (begins at 1.30) and describing - at the time - what that was like.  Danny ElfmanPhotography by The Kuhnster, 2010 You don't need to be L to have seen this one coming. If Gus van Sant is going to be directing the new Death Note live action movie, then it was inevitable that Danny Elfman would do the music. He composes the music for ALL of Gus van Sant's films. However, we do have to insert a small note of caution. Danny's involvement has still not been officially announced. He's merely turned up on IMDb's cast and crew list for the Death Note film. That might just be an extrapolation from the knowledge that Gus van Sant is strongly tipped to take over as director. Even if you think you don't any of Danny Elfman's music, you do. He's been involved in some of the biggest movies and TV shows over the past three decades. The Simpsons, Good Will Hunting, Ghostbusters II, the 1989 Batman movies, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Epic, Alice in Wonderland, Milk, The Corpse Bride... need I go on? In fact, have a gander at this lot and tell me from where you know him. I guarantee there will be something! As for whether Danny Elfman could credibly compose music for Death Note, various fans have already answered that one. Like YouTuber My Space, who used Danny's The Little Things from Wanted to provide an AMV tribute to Light Yagami. He's long since been my composer of choice for this project anyway. So I'm thrilled with the strong possibility that Danny Elfman is now on board with Death Note.  It hardly counts as an official announcement, but one feels just that little bit closer.
Until now, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has retained Shane Black's name as the director linked with Death Note the movie. Suddenly, overnight, he's been replaced by Gus van Sant. The best we can really say about this is IMDb's administrative team believe the gossip be true. So what do they know that we do not? It's not like they've jumped the gun too quickly either. For just over a week - since The Tracking Board broke the rumour on July 10th 2014 - news sources and blogs have been filled with people like me passing on the information: Gus van Sant strongly tipped to replace Shane Black as Death Note's director. Yet IMDb didn't budge. For eight full days, the site still had the director listed as that last officially acknowledged - Shane Black. So what changed for them? What made it much more likely to be occurring? IMDb isn't Warner Bros. There still hasn't been an authoritative update on the site since April 23rd 2014. But IMDb is Amazon. Surely a company that big has its contacts in Hollywood... Like I said, nothing here is official. But it sure feels much more like it is.  There's a treat here for Spanish Death Note fans, as artist Takeshi Obata has been booked for the 20th Salón del Manga de Barcelona.
Organised by Ficomic, the convention will be held from October 30th - November 2nd 2014, at Fira Barcelona Montjuïc. It hasn't yet been announced precisely what he'll be doing there, though we can speculate that he'll be on some kind of panel. No doubt promoting his latest work on All You Need is Kill. The booking was made possible in collaboration with Norma Editorial, who represent Obata's work in Spain. Anyone going to see him there?  Visit here for Poisoned Rationalitydigital downloads.
As promised, I'm slowly working through all of my novels and transforming them into eBooks to be downloaded.
Today it's the turn of the fourth in the series - Poisoned Rationality. The free digital version(s) may be accessed from my MediaFire folder. Currently I have ePub and PDF formats in there. However, if it was merely a case of reformatting this story, as I have with all of the others so far, you would have been able to access it yesterday afternoon. I've gone a little bit further with this one. Basically, I've remastered the whole thing. I began last night, then devoted the entire of today to it too. I didn't quite mean to do so, but things happen. I've read the story from start to finish, then tinkered with the wording. Insofar as I could find them, all typos are now gone, and all of the flashbacks, letters and EHC forum chats are properly formatted. Then I edited the novel. Part of me is cringing slightly in guilt at this. I know that readers haven't reacted well in the past to me suggesting that certain It Matters novels could do with a rewrite. I understand that there are those of you who can quote whole sections back to me, and who have read and re-read every tale a humbling amount of times. You don't want me to alter a single syllable. You even love the spelling mistakes. But well, perfection. I'm not saying that Poisoned Rationality is now perfect. No novel can ever be that (unless it's Wuthering Heights obviously). However, there are some chapters that have now been quite heavily reworded, and others which have received merely the lightest spit and polish. The story itself hasn't fundamentally changed, but bits of the presentation gleam a little harder. An emphasis might have shifted here and there (quite a lot of there in some places), so it might read like a slightly different novel. I suppose that I should have given you all a choice - made an eBook of the original before I started tatting with it. But I didn't know that I'd eventually end up with over twenty-four hours of rewritten material. The original remains in the website library and on AFF too. In addition, I've gone through the Poisoned Rationality section of the website. I've fixed all of the links; removed the dead ones; embedded new iframes where the originals had died; added in a store; and created a YouTube playlist to replace the old defunct one. I hope you like the remastered version (and the die-hards aren't already writing my name in their black notebooks for doing it). Let me know what you think.  He Moves Me Differently - Wuthering Heights Post Cards by TheWriteWord Check out other Top withins Postcards at zazzle.com  There's finally news about the Death Note movie! Just a couple of weeks after I did the round up about the information so far, there's something actually new to add.
After all this talk of Shane Black's excitement and defense of the Death Note film, it seems that he's now been ousted as director. The Tracking Board has reported that Gus van Sant has taken up the reins instead. Gus van Sant is most famous for his movies Good Will Hunting and Milk. Coincidentally, I watched Milk just recently and raved about it with everyone that I know. It certainly promises that the director will find the depths in Death Note. As far as I can currently ascertain, the script produced by Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry is still that on the table. I do hope so, because otherwise Warner might push for their alternative script, where Light was the good guy with a poor upbringing/trauma leading to his dodgy choices. However, there is hope in that he remade Psycho once, and did that practically shot by shot identical to the original black and white one. I've just realised that he was also the director of My Own Private Idaho. Huge grin here. That's one of my favourite films of all time! I'm definitely feeling good about him doing Death Note. According to Gus van Sant's profile on IMDb, there are some trademark things that we can therefore expect for the Death Note movie too:
More as soon as I know it! Sorry about going AWOL there. I forgot to mention to you all that I'd be heading off to the Glastonbury Festival, followed by a birthday celebration (for a friend) in sunny Cornwall.
On the bright side, it seems like nothing much happened in the Death Note world while I was away anyway, so you didn't miss much. Normal service will be resumed forthwith. |
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