What Jason Eisener's appointment implies, as director of Death Note's second unit, is that there will be at least two sets running concurrently.  (Prevailing rumour whispers that there will eventually be three.)

This development in the technical film-making side of things is borne witness is the latest update from the Directors Guild of Canada (download PDF, dated June 10th 2016), which otherwise doesn't add a great deal to what we already reported at the beginning of May 2016.

To spell out what that means - while Wingard oversees the action at one Death Note filming location; Eisener will be in charge of the other.  Double the opportunity for Death Note fans to oops-a-daisy accidentally wander into the movie shoot, and get themselves forcibly ejected by security or constabulary.

Hopefully with pictures and/or gossip, which we'll happily share.

Filming on Death Note kicks off in Vancouver on June 29th 2016.  It is currently due to finish on August 30th 2016.

However, same day information linking Selma and Straight Outta Compton star Keith Stanfield with Death Note was only reported by The Wrap (Adam Wingard’s ‘Death Note’ Jumps From Warner Bros. to Netflix (Exclusive), Thom Geier, April 6th 2016). 

A tip-off had been sourced from an 'insider', but no-one at Netflix was available to take repeated calls to query its veracity.

Nor yet the second shared insight. This was that Death Note was nearing production, when Warner Bros decided to end years of dilly-dalling by pulling the rug at the 11th hour.  But that bit was obvious.  It didn't take a Wammy level genius detective to deduce its truth. This was the only scenario which could account for the studio hiring director and stars for its cast; then suddenly sitting down at the negotiation table with Netflix, now poised to secure Death Note's production rights for itself instead.

A little out of left-field and accordingly met with surprise by the Death Note fandom, with no little wide-eyed pondering upon the implications.

Most fan comments clocked by Death Note News staff on balance seemed relieved that our tale was out of that studio's hands.  Few had really trusted Warner Bros executives in the US, since Black exposed their desire to show Light Yagami muddled, angst-ridden, but fundamentally a good guy, whilst getting rid of Ryuk for Satanic overtones vis-a-vis shinigami.

Now Netflix appeared (and remains so at the time of writing) to be making the Death Note movie; and, if Thom Geier of The Wrap has it right, bringing favoured actor Keith Stanfield into the project too.  Though nothing of the sort can be verified until the ink is dry on that deal documentation.

Which leaves fans of Death Note musing upon two big burning questions for the moment:

• Will Netlix release Death Note (US movie) in theaters/cinemas, or stream it only?
• Who will Keith Stanfield be playing?

With Light - and Misa - already taken, the field is wide open.  It could be any Death Note character at all (though the likelihood falls dramatically regarding roles amongst female dramatis personae).  In considering it, watch Keith Stanfield in action and see if a name presents itself. Then please do comment with your suggestions.  We might be the first to call it!

Has he the gravitas to be Soichiro Yagami perhaps?   Though, thinking about it, that might raise questions about whether Light (aka Nat Wolff) is really his biological son.   Aizawa?

As we've been asked this plenty of times and can finally answer it - Death Note's casting manger is Laray Mayfield, who we love for Fight Club.  The company's production address is 310 - 330A 555 Brooksbank Avenue, North Vancouver, BC, V7J 3S5.  (Tel: 604-983-5400  Email: deathnoteproduction@prodicle.com)

Deadpool's James Bitonti has signed up as co-producer and assistant director.  There were actually bets being made here on a firm Deadpool/Death Note movie link being established soon. Unfortunately we kept it to ourselves instead of speculating in an editorial, else Death Note News would have appeared hot on the ball and well ahead of the crowd.

Bitonti, of course, is also known for X:Men and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  But Deadpool will be the clincher.

Adam Wingard remains the director, though his real name is actually WILLIAM Adam Wingard, according to the blarb.  Producers Masi Oka, Brian Witten and Dan Lin also retain their involvement in the movie; along with executive producers Roy Lee, John Powers Middleton and Adam C. Stone.

Newly brought on-board is executive producer Brendan Ferguson, known for The Butterfly Effect, Sucker Punch and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.  He will also be acting as unit production manager.  He'll be joined in the executive producer role by Doug Davison of How to Train Your Dragon fame.

Drew Locke is stepping in as production manager, Laura Livingstone is PC (anyone know what that stands for?) and Hans Dayal is location manager. He will be assisted in the role by Patrick Subarsky.

Finally, relative newcomer Ryan Halprin will be filling the position of production executive.  Whatever that is.  He was an assistant to Dan Lin on The Lego Movie, and co-produced the upcoming sequels.

Beyond that, you'll know more when we do.

Warner Bros Japan have released a thirty-second teaser for its upcoming movie -the erstwhile Death Note 2016 trailer, now officially renamed Death Note: Light Up the New World.

The segment depicts one of the new - and purportedly worse ever - Death Note owner Sakura Aoi (Rina Kawaei) in the midst of a mass killing spree.  She has no ideological background, just the will to kill.  She tells Ryuk, "I will show more interesting things than Kira did."   He finally answers, "After all, humans are so interesting!"

Ready to know the name of the movie that we're all going to see in October 2016?  (Or as close as it may be coherently located within our own neck of the globe.)  Ready?  *Drum-roll*  Death Note: Light Up the NEW World.

Until now, this Shinsuke Sato directed Death Note movie has gloried under the working moniker of Death Note 2016.  We always knew it would change with the only bets being about how bad that final title might be, for this live-action sequel to the earlier trilogy of Japanese movies.  All things considered, Death Note: Light Up the New World isn't too bad.  Not when compared to some that we'd contemplated here ourselves.

Perhaps a little cheesy, with the strong potential for disappointment, as we doubt very much that we'll see much of Light Yagami beyond reference or the occasional flashback.  Probably just the former.

Warner Bros Japan announced the film's final and official retitle with a poster featuring its three main cast-members:

This poster announcing a name-change for Death Note 2016, first appeared in the Japanese press on April 8th 2015, trickling out across the world thereon.

It depicts new characters Yugi Shion, Tsukuru Mishima and Ryūzaki perched on chairs above a scattering of six death notes, topped by that fruity shinigami favourite - a shiny, new, red apple.

(Be still your immortal beating heart, Ryuk.  If we put together to get you a whole basket of the stuff, would you go and be bored somewhere else instead?  Like another planet or plane of existence entirely, please. A few Granny Smiths really aren't worth the wanton destruction of humanity, with a theatre of war on a global scale enacted in genocide; forced rendering of all our civil and human rights; terror; and enslavement.  Do it for oil, like everybody else.)

Reflected within the polished floor-tiles, we see the faded, pixelating visages of their predecessors - Light Yagami and L - both deceased with ten years standing between their stories told in the first movies, and the present day recounted in this.

Death Note: Light Up the New World will open in Japanese cinemas on October 29th 2016.

Adam Wingard's Death Note is likely to start filming in June 2016.  But it won't be Warner Bros behind the production anymore.  At the moment, it's highly likely to be Netflix.

That is the startling news circulating today.

It's unknown why Warner Bros. has decided to surrender the project, which it's held firmly in abeyance since 2009.  During that time, the studio has ordered script rewrites; actors have been linked with various roles, but the rumours rarely came to fruition; while directors have come and gone, one - we're indebted to you, Shane Black - with horror stories of Warner Bros. US attempting to sanitize the Death Note story out of all comprehension.

By the end of 2015 through early 2016, it seemed that Warner Bros. finally had a format which worked for them and all concerned.  Adam Wingard was directing; Nat Wolff had signed up to play Kira, with his real life girlfriend Margaret Qualley poised to become the movie's Misa Amane.  There was much talk of initial photography beginning in the spring.

Hence the shock nature of the news (broken by Justin Kroll at Variety) that Warner Bros. chose now to put their Death Note film 'into turnaround'.

Opening up a bidding war which Netflix currently seems set to win. Though SFX and Lionsgate are also strongly in the running.  (Anyone else think that something about a Lionsgate Death Note feels so right?) 

However, there is some speculation that giving up Death Note is part of Warner Bros. previously declared cull on 'homegrown movies', in order to concentrate its resources upon extant franchises known to be successful.  The monetary profit for Warner Bros - raised by the sale of its film rights to Death Note - is expected to fall into the ballpark of $40m-$50m.

Adam Wingard, Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley are all apparently still on board, whichever company snaps the movie up.

Netflix, of course, already has some data concerning the popularity of Death Note.  It recently started streaming full episodes of the anime, so can see for itself how many Western viewers are interested in this particular story.  However, it's not yet game over for the other bidders.  The current status for Netflix and Death Note is 'in final negotiations', which could pretty much mean anything, besides what it says on the packet.

As for fans, it's mostly looking like we will finally get our US live-action Death Note movie, whomever produces it, though it remains to be seen whether that will be available online only, or also released as a theatrical run.

While we're all familiar with the movie L Change the World - even those who wish they weren't - even long-standing Death Note fans might have missed the fact that Matsuda got his own short film in relation to it.  As these stills from the ten minute movie attest:

Broadcast on Japanese television, initially on February 8th 2008, Spin-Off Matsuda was basically made up of scenes deleted from the movie itself.  It followed the fortunes of Touta Matsuda in a story which ran concurrently with those seen with L, Maki and Near.

It starred Sōta Aoyama as Matsuda, reprising his role from the other live-action movies in the trilogy (soon to be quartet).

As with the main movie L Change the World, Kiyomi Fujii wrote the screenplay. The spin-off covers Matsuda's issues with filing a final Kira case report, and a poignant meeting with L a fortnight before the latter's known and inevitable death.

Adam Wingard is known for his horror/suspense movies.  Lots of blood and guts, a touch of the old slasher genre, with plenty of gratuitous violence, should the script allow him to ninja some in.  Plus sex.  And expletives.  That's what we've come to expect from Adam Wingard, the man responsible for The Guest (2014), You're Next (2011) and segments of movies like V.H.S. and its sequel.  Hence Death Note was already promising to be a little gorily adult themed in amongst his oeuvre.

What Roy Lee had to say merely places a smile on several Death Note News staff-members faces, coupled with a 'obviously seen Deadpool and decided to risk it then' comment or two.

Meanwhile, editor Matti has already been trying to introduce Adam Wingard to the concept of filming the second arc too:

It has been an incredibly exciting week for Death Note fans, and now we find out that Takeshi Obata has been overseeing the artwork for Death Note 2016's brand, new shinigami(s) too.

On the 4th of February 2016, the official Twitter account - for this new Japanese live-action Death Note movie - announced the actors involved in the film, character introductions, as well as posting comments from Obata and Ohba themselves!

The comments, translated from the original Japanese, state:

Japan's new Death Note movie will be released sometime this year, and cast comments are available at the official movie website.

Well, this is exciting, isn't it?  We all have our eyes on the Japanese Warner Bros Death Note 2016 live action movie, plus the US remake Death Note film, when suddenly a wild Death Note live action film appears from Ireland!

There has been no heads up about this at all, at least insofar as we've seen at Death Note News - and we like to think we have our finger on the pulse of all things in the franchise. Imagine our surprise then to return from seasonal holidays with the family to find a Death Note movie apparently plucked from thin air and doing the rounds of the Japanese promotional circuit.

This Death Note movie will be released in Japan by AMG Entertainment on January 5th 2016.  It involves a black notebook within which the names of criminals are listed. They soon meet a sticky end in mysterious circumstances - some of which occur whilst the victims are incarcerated in prison cells.

However, that's where the similarity ends.

The story is set in Ireland (or Scotland - reviews diverge on the point) and the protagonist is a man named Six (Liam Cunningham).  He appears as the Mysterious Stranger in a remote village, where rookie cop Rachel (Pollyanna McIntosh) is just starting her first night.  Not a great start to her policing career. Six takes over the minds of anyone with a dodgy past and forces them to basically do gory things to themselves and/or co-operate in their own demise.

Neither Light Yagami nor the rest of the usual Death Note cast are in this story. In fact, it appears to have no official sanction or any other relation to the main Death Note franchise.  At best it's a derivative work or some kind of extended fan work.

Or should that be merely a bad translation?   It seems that this Brian O'Malley directed Death Note movie was originally called Let Us Prey, and that's how it's still listed on IMDb.  Here is its rather gory trailer:

In short, though heavily marketed in Japan as a live action movie called Death Note, it's nothing to do with the manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. It's fundamentally the same horror/slash film marketed in Europe and the US, in 2014, as Let Us Prey.  However, with its Biblical references and Angel of Death/Justice themes, it might appeal to fans of Death Note anyway.

Twitter has been in uproar, cheering on and retweeting US actress Arden Cho's comments about the US live-action Death Note movie, and its strangely Caucasian casting choices thus far.

Known for her bad-ass role as Kira Yukimura in TV drama Teen Wolf, Arden Cho was scathing about Death Note casting overlooking Asian actors in the USA.  She initially Tweeted:

Then, in response to Lauren, a commenter who wrote, 'MANY talented Asian actors/actresses to choose from and yet they whitewash the whole film!'  Arden posted:

Nor had she finished there.

Finally, Arden Cho had a greeting for Edward Zo (possibly tipped off by the furore on Twitter regarding her comments about whitewashing Death Note):

Asian-American actor Edward Zo had previously - and quite famously - been vocal on the subject of Death Note US live-action movie auditions excluding Asian actors.  Silence means approval and neither Arden nor Edward are prepared to be silent on this issue.  Nor are a whole lot of other people judging by the amount of retweets and replies each exposee and protest prompted.

What do you think?

2016 looks to be a big year for Light Yagami actor Nat Wolff.

In addition to starring in the American live action Death Note adaptation, he will feature in two other movies that year.

Nat Wolff is playing Jim Nolan, the idealistic leader of a 900 strong workers' rights movement rising up in 1930s California, in James Franco's dramatization of John Steinbeck's 'desperately honest' novel In Dubious Battle.

Finding the 'courage never to submit or yield', Nolan took on landowners with an impassioned zeal that saw him elevated to almost Christ-like proportions among the starving Californians  he inspired fight back.  Like Christ, he was ultimately doomed - sacrificed to the cause of maintaining the hegemony and demonstrating their overlord's might.

Based on a true story, In Dubious Battle describes the real world struggle of striking apple and peach pickers in Tulare County. 

It was called 'courageous' when Steinbeck wrote it, and subsequently highly suppressed. (Probably in case it caused the good folk of Visalia remember their history and take it upon themselves to fight injustice again. But mostly because it was perceived to 'promote' Communism.)  Nevertheless - and as a definite point in his favour insofar as I'm concerned - President Barack Obama cited In Dubious Battle as his favourite Steinbeck novel.

The movie is currently in post-production, due for release sometime in 2016.

Also just announced is Nat Wolff's casting in Jessica Manafort's Rosy.  He will be taking on the role of Doug, a lonely, young man who abducts an actress named Rosy.  He expects her to bow to his every whim, but she proves a much more difficult prospect than that.

The  part of Rosy is as yet uncast in this indie thriller.