By Tasha Huo is currently out promoting the second and final season of Netflix’s “Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft” and Amazon’s Vox Machina spin-off series “The Mighty Nein” – both series she serves as showrunner on.
The former Universal Pictures assistant turned writer/producer has also worked on several film scripts like the recent “Red Sonja” movie, the pilot for a TV series take on the game “Child of Light,” and co-writing a forthcoming live-action film adaptation of the famed manga/anime “Naruto” franchise.
Originally announced back in 2015, the film was stuck in development hell until last year, when “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” director Destin Daniel Cretton signed on to co-write and direct the film.
A script was reportedly completed back in August 2024 by Cretton and Huo, but Cretton has been busy with his commitments to directing “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”. Once that film is out next July, it’s expected he’ll turn his attention again back to either the “Shang-Chi” sequel or “Naruto”.
Speaking with Nexus Point News, Huo spoke about the challenge of translating the manga/anime property to live-action:
“For Naruto, it was to ground it, to make it feel real and believable in the world of a live-action movie. When you watch it or read it, it’s so bonkers. It’s so good, but it is so bonkers.
The rules you just sort of kind of take for granted because of the medium you’re watching it in, but once you translate it to real people saying real lines and needing to convey real plot. Yeah, that was the challenge but also the joy of it because they’re just so fun.”
Manga/anime to live-action adaptations have been notoriously terrible over the years, with only a few really shining as good or great adaptations like Netflix’s “One Piece” and “Alice in Borderland”, along with films like “Edge of Tomorrow” and “Speed Racer”.
Jeyun Munford, Jeremy Latcham, Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Emmy Yu produce the film. The franchise follows teenage ninja heroes-in-training and centers on Naruto Uzumaki in his quest to become The Hokage – the legendary chosen protector of his embattled ninja village.
The manga was serialised and ran from 1999 to 2014. It became one of the world’s most popular IPs, with over 250 million copies of the collected volumes sold. The property also launched several animated series on Cartoon Network, Disney XD, Adult Swim, and others. It has also been a video game and merchandising smash.
The post “Naruto” Writer On Adapting It To Live-Action appeared first on Dark Horizons.
