There seems to be a touch of the Mikami about this new Death Note character - a Kira aping Supreme Judge to be introduced in the fourth of the movies, out in Japan this October.

Eiichiro Funakoshi has been cast as Kenichi Mikuriya, one of the owners of a shinigami notebook in the movie Death Note: Light Up the NEW World.  He picks up his Death Note after six of them fall to Earth on Kozuki Night and chaos reigns a whole lot harder.

As a high-ranking judge, it might expected that Mikuriya would hand his notebook immediately over to the appropriate legal authority for them (in this case, Tsukuru Mishima and his Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team). However, the Supreme Judge as better ideas.  Rankled with the slow progress of the law, and with the occasional iniquity and unfairness of it too, Mikuriya determines the way forward to be embracing a more 'sophisticated' brand of arbitrating justice, i.e. him using the Death Note where the courtroom fails.

We can't help feeling that we've heard rhetoric like this before.  You know, from Light, L, every Wammy ever, Mikami...

And ok! Mikami was a mere prosecutor, not a Supreme Judge, nor was the lawyer technically a Death Note owner.  But the distinction would have been lost on any of those many thousand of names that old Teru over-dramatically scribbled into his own (borrowed/bequeathed) Death Note pages. We've had an L clone and a Kira imitator announced (plus the originals back in the forms of Misa and Matsuda), so why not Mikami. 

Now bigger and better and much, much darker. Deleting along with his forerunner and the best of them.

Death Note: Light Up the NEW World will be out on October 29th 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: [email protected])

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.

Warner Bros. Japan has made public another movie photograph from Death Note 2016.  This time featuring Light Yagami-wannabe Yūgi Shion played by Masaki Suda.  As with all the others, there's no actual context to it, just to keep us all guessing what is going on.

Yūgi Shion is a cyber-savvy hacker, state-sponsored (new information there!) yet on the trail of Death Notes as they fall across the globe.  Kira was his hero and he wants to complete the erstwhile God/Murderer's mission as best he can.  For the moment, that apparently involves messing electronically with officers from the Death Note Counter Measure Headquarters Special Team, as they go about their investigation.

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:

Warner Bros Japan has announced another new character for its live action movie Death Note 2016 (working title), currently being filmed in Japan.

Sakura Aoi is one of the six people set to possess a fallen Death Note.  However, in complete contrast to Light Yagami, she uses it utterly indiscriminately with no attempt at all at justification.  This makes her - we are warned - the 'most terrible Death Note user' that we've seen yet.

Bringing her to life on the silver screen is Rina Kawaei, formerly a singer in the Japanese idol girl band AKB48.  On Warner's official Death Note 2016 website, she proclaims herself excited because this isn't any kind of role that she's played before.  She's looking forward to the challenge.

Moreover, she's thrilled because this is Death Note! Though finding that a slightly strange feeling, on account of her excitement being about a story wherein lots of people die.  Oh, Rina!  Hang out with us. No-one will think you strange amongst this readership.  You're amongst friends and kindred spirits here! 

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?

The internet is currently abuzz with news that the Adam Wingard directed US Death Note live action movie is about to cast its Misa Amane.

Margaret Qualley (Jill Garvey in HBO's The Leftovers) is apparently in final talks to play the 'female lead' - according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter ('Leftovers' Actress Margaret Qualley in Talks to Join Adam Wingard's 'Death Note' (Exclusive) by Borys Kit, November 12th 2015) - though presumably that is Misa.

This relatively unknown US actress also played Raquel in the 2013 drama movie Palo Alto, wherein she co-starred with Nat Wolff - the actor strongly believed to have been cast as US Death Note's Light Yagami.

However, it's a little bit more than that.  Margaret and Nat have been dating since 2012. 

If both of these 'final negotiations' rumours are true, then we will be seeing an established long-term real life couple playing Misa and Light in the live action US Death Note movie.

Born in Asheville, North Carolina, on October 23rd 1994, her full name is Susan Margaret Qualley,

The mooted Death Note actress has even more famous familial credentials.  Her mother is A-list Hollywood actress Andie MacDowell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Green Card, Sex, Lies and Videotapes, Multiplicity) from her first marriage with male model Paul Qualley. 

Her sister Rainey Qualley is also an actress - recently seen in Falcon Song, Pink & Baby Blue and the TV series Mad Men - as well as a touring musician. Rainey opened for Loretta Lynn earlier this year, while her debut single Me and Johnny Cash is currently making waves in Country circuits.

Margaret Qualley originally trained as a ballerina, performing at the American Ballet Theatre and joining the North Carolina Dance Company.  She was apprenticed at the French Academy in New York, before moving to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Naturally the latter signalled a shift in outlook, whereby Margaret now sought to follow in her mother's footsteps as an actress.

Here she is in her most famous role to date, as Jill Garvey in The Leftovers.

If true, the casting of Margaret Qualley as Misa is bound to cause controversy, just as did the role of Light Yagami linked with Nat Wolff. 

Neither American actors are ethnically Japanese, though they will be portraying Japanese characters. While Hollywood is long past getting away with blackening white actors faces to play other races, the industry stands accused of employing its modern equivalent to endemic proportions.

In short, ethnically Asian actors need not apply for leading roles in Hollywood pictures, not even when the parts up for grabs are Asian characters.  As North American actor Edward Zo discovered, when he sought to audition for Light Yagami.

The furore here is already raging, as regards Death Note's US live action film. Margaret Qualley's casting in the role of Misa Amane is unlikely to help matters there.

Though in fairness, Misa looks less Asian than Margaret.

Actor Edward Zo is the latest to comment on the whitewashing furore surrounding the US live action Death Note movie.

Yet his might be the hardest-hitting commentary to date, simply because it relates personal experience to back up what so many are saying about inappropriate casting bias.

Ever since a strong rumour circulated that Nat Wolff (Paper Towns, Naked Brothers' Band) will star in the Death Note US remake, there has been much dissent amongst the masses. Voices raised on Twitter and other social networks, petitions, and a lot of angry talk elsewhere.

The issue being that Light Yagami is a Japanese man, who is being played by a white American half-Jewish actor. The important fact there being 'white'.

It feeds into a wider, quite repugnant tradition, whereby only white actors are cast in meaningful roles (or indeed 'roles' full-stop much of the time). Even if it means changing the ethnicity of the character in order to do so.

But one American actor - who was told openly not to bother auditioning for Death Note because he's too Asian - is hitting back.

Edward Zo's video message to Hollywood is twenty minutes long, yet well worth affording the time to watch.

It's not merely a rant from an actor feeling entitled to something because of his ethnicity. It's an intelligent, multi-faceted look at the inherent racism of the film industry as a whole.

There's plenty of background, giving history and context, before zooming in on the specifics facing 'actors of colour' in Hollywood today.  Not least that there just aren't that many roles with 'layers and depths' available for those who aren't white.  Light Yagami should have been one of them.

This isn't just about an actor thwarted in a sought after part. It matters in a much wider setting.

Zo emphasizes the fact that visibility is key here. One demographic dominates the movie industry, and media per se. Whether we wish it or not, such things corrupt our perceptions of other cultures, races, classes, or whatever else feels unknown despite being part of the same human story.

Edward Zo is not Bruce Lee, nor is he Jackie Chan, yet he frequently encounters folk for whom those two gentlemen are their only frame of reference for his skin colour and features.

For Death Note fans, there's the added impetus of Zo's personal experience. A manga fan since childhood, he has long been passionate about Death Note.

Hence the excitement when he learned that a live action Death Note movie was being made in his native USA. It sounded like the kind of vehicle crying out for talented Asian-American actors. He couldn't be more wrong.

Informal inquiries, regarding auditions for his dream role of Light Yagami, led to the grapevine rustling back some unsettling news.

Despite being blatantly told not to bother applying, Edward Zo brushed aside the grapevine rhetoric enough to pursue the part through official channels. He asked his manager to submit his profile to Death Note's casting director.

He heard nothing back. Just the news that we all heard, which is that Nat Wolff is in 'final negotiations' to play Light Yagami.

No Asian actor at all, but an apple pie, ex-Nickelodeon, white American.

Not that Edward Zo has anything against Nat Wolff. He enjoyed the Naked Brothers Band and thought Wolff was great in his recently released movie Paper Towns. Nor is any of this necessarily Nat Wolff's fault.

Nevertheless, it feels, smells and looks like cultural imperialism from Zo's point of view.

Edward Zo highlights another example of Hollywood whitewashing

Nat Wolff's lead role casting in Death Note conveys a message loud and clear to all Asians watching.  Summed up, in Zo's own words, as:

Hollywood is happy to take stories from all over the world; authors may be any ethnicity, colour, race, creed, hail from any country, write in any language. But their tale will be told through a culturally white Protestant lens.

Thus it becomes white Protestant by tradition, as the loudest voice is usually the one most heard.

While the current highly extensive fandom is well aware that Death Note is Japanese, a whole new audience about to be exposed to a potential block-buster which swears that this is an American story.

Does that matter in the long run?  Well put it this way, when you think of Romeo and Juliet, is it a Shakespearian play set in Verona?  Original author Masuccio Salernitano would be amazed to find that his tale moved out of Tuscany and no-one today recalls that it was ever there.

And just ask the Welsh what contortions King Arthur went through after being wrestled from our grasp. Let's just say that nothing in the legend now looks like it does in the fragments that remain of our heritage.

Cultural approximation can so easily become cultural imperialism. That's the warning Edward Zo makes with regard to Death Note. Today Japanese, tomorrow white American.

Assuming it doesn't flop like other whitewashed Asian films. We're all looking at you, Dragonball Z and Airbender.

But the actor remains defiant.

Take it from a Briton, Americans really don't like being told they're liable for taxation without representation.  Nor any of its modern equivalents. Like 'buy tickets for movie presentations without being in them'.

Hard work and persistence is supposed to realise the American Dream. If no hope in its actuality exists, then the good folk Stateside tend to bite back...

... and start revolutions.

And older people too.  I'm so far past young, that Edward Zo looks barely old enough to be out of diapers, but I heard and I vocalised. A life-long believer that silence means approval and no change was ever made without each of us speaking up wherever we perceive something wrong.

Especially when it seems endemic, institutionalized and so commonplace that we barely notice unless its pointed out.

Edward Zo pointed out something important here, and it behoves us to listen to what he has to say. Else nothing ever changes and this one is far bigger than even Death Note.

Up for release in 2016, Death Note: Year One was a US live-action movie based on the manga. There was a $15m budget attached to the project.

Sometime over the past few days, its IMDb listing has disappeared. It had been there for well over a couple of years.  Here's how it looked until recently:

However, this wasn't the much discussed Warner Bros epic, due to be directed by Adam Wingard.  The studio here was Wonder Works Films. Its director was Joseph 'Yossi' Bechor, who - along with Julie Paupe - was also the movie's scriptwriter.

For more on what it purported to be, read the Death Note News article about it from this time last year:  15m Dollar Budget for new Wonder Works Films US Adaptation Death Note: Year One.

So what's happened?  Where has it gone?  What do we know?

I can't help but wonder if this was never officially sanctioned by the copyright holders, and now Warner Bros have leaned upon the studio.

After all, Warner Bros has two Death Note movies of its own to produce and market for release in 2016.  The company probably wouldn't welcome any potential confusion with similar sounding projects listed right alongside Death Note 2016 and its US live-action counterpart.

Which does make you wonder how Wonder Works Films and its CEO - the ubiquitous Yossi Bechor - thought they would get away with it in the first place.

Since we last looked, there is slightly more information on-line about Death Note: Year One's script-writing director Yossi Bechor. For a start, his sparsely populated biography on IMDb:

However, that's a much reduced listing these days than its been in the past. Usually Bechor's sceen credits go on for pages and include plenty of block-busters alongside less known Indie film titles.

Like his listing at Stage 32, which has Joseph Bechor working for several major studios simultaneously.

None of which are Wonder Works Films, nor those others mentioned on his LinkedIn profile - Twisted Films and HorrorFilx (GB).

His company website there links to RSA Films.

Am I missing something here?

Apparently Kill Bill is. According to Bechor's Stage 32 credits, he was the co-executive producer on that movie in 2005.  Which must come as news to Quentin Tarantino, as no Kill Bill credit list mentions Joseph Bechor at all, nor under his nickname Yossi Bechor, nor (just for completion) is he named anywhere near Kill Bill 2.

Plus the film came out in 2003, not 2005.

This time last year, our look at Death Note: Year One and Yossi Bechor conclude that it was some kind of ornate trollfest. I have to say, I've uncovered nothing this time around to make me alter that view one iota.

Safe to say that this is one live action Death Note movie which won't see the light of day, and therefore I'll leave it there.

It seems that I jumped the gun a little last week, when I posted something before it had officially been announced. 

Ooops.

To be fair though, I wasn't officially tipped off either. Nor did anything intimate time sensitivity.

And information does want to be free.

I stumbled across the recruitment form for extras on Death Note 2016 and told you all about it on September 29th.  Warner Japan have only just announced it. Ahead of the game. Oh yeah!

Here's the Warner JP Tweet all about it, posted today (October 5th 2015):