Warner Bros. Acquires Rights to 'Shingeki no Kyojin' Hollywood Live-Action Film

by arsonal
Oct 29, 2018 10:47 PM | 36 Comments

Entertainment news website Variety has confirmed that American film production company Warner Bros. has acquired the feature film rights to Hajime Isayama's post-apocalyptic fantasy manga Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan). Warner Bros. reached a deal with the manga's Japanese publisher, Kodansha, on Monday.

The Hollywood film adaptation will be helmed by Argentine filmmaker Andy Muschietti, who directed last year's supernatural horror film It, based on Stephen King's 1986 novel of the same name. British film studio Heyday Films founder David Heyman (Harry Potter), Japanese American actor Masi Oka (Death Note), and Andy's sister Barbara Muschietti (Mama) are credited as producers for the film.

Negotiations for the manga's adaptation by a Hollywood production company were first revealed by the entertainment news website Deadline Hollywood in January 2017. At the time, Kodansha released a statement indicating that various film negotiations were underway and that the Deadline Hollywood report was erroneous. On Tuesday morning, Kodansha finally provided a press release to Japanese media confirming the film's production.

Toho Pictures previously produced two live-action adaptations of Shingeki no Kyojin in 2015. Those films (pictured) were directed by Gainax veteran Shinji Higuchi and starred Haruma Miura as protagonist Eren Yeager. Both films were also released internationally. In Japan, the films earned a cumulative 4.93 billion yen in box office revenues, becoming the year's seventh and 24th highest-grossing domestic films.

No release date has been set for Muschietti's Shingeki no Kyojin adaptation. He is currently directing a sequel of It scheduled to be released in September 2019.

Source: Variety, PR Times

Live Action

20 of 36 Comments Recent Comments

Live action adaptations either need a show that has little enough content to fit into 1.5-2 hours, or a talented enough writer to actually be able to write something original and make the movie have an ending while keeping the tone and mood of the source.

Seriously, that wasn't that hard of an analysis to think about, yet all of these live action movies end up being garbage, due to the lack of knowledge about the source material. That Ghost in the Shell movie had a lot of homages to the original movie, but didn't even know what the appeal was, and completely left out all the psychological aspects the series was known for.

Hollywood's idea of what anime is is completely off, and until that changes, mixing Hollywood and anime is a formula destined to fail. It's not even specific to anime anymore. It's like the worst of the Marvel movies, they just attempt to adapt some of these characters and make them appeal to the masses, while completely forgetting why we liked these comic book characters in the first place. There are obviously Marvel movies that have taken creative liberties with their characters, but they didn't stray THAT far, in those specific instances. Wolverine was still a cool enough anti-hero, they didn't make him into some sappy friendship-coveting superhero or anything

Nov 3, 2018 9:26 PM by OnionKnightRises

FoxyKaizoku said:

toutoune134 said:

Aot has a 19th century european inspired setting, I don't see why it couldn't be properly adapted into a Hollywood movie. And most of the characters are Caucasians, with Mikasa being the only asian. Of course they could add more diverse original characters as long they fit the setting and the story.

Caucasians? European?... Goodness, do you know the definition of "style"?

Show me an article or a mangaka's note where he says that all of the mentioned characters are Caucasians and Mikasa is "the only Asian".
Stop projecting your politicized beliefs on art. Anime does NOT play your race game.

You do know that most of the characters in AOT are not Asian right? I'm pretty sure Mikasa is the only Asian in the series, and thats why she was kidnapped and was gonna be sold in human trafficking because she is considered the last Asian survivor... The rest of the cast from European descent, Eren can be assumed German because of his name. So don't go putting people down when you don't even know that much.

Nov 1, 2018 11:36 AM by Ato1414

I didn't watch it myself, but I heard that supposedly the only good American live-action movie adaptation up until now is "Edge of Tomorrow", which is an adaptation of the Japanese manga (or was it a (light)novel? I am not sure) series "All You Need Is Kill".

Nov 1, 2018 12:01 AM by Grey-Zone

well, I'm not really surprised, it's a superhero-themed anime, and Americans love superheroes, so I doubt it would hurt them to try... But I think it will be worse than those Recent DC movies.

Oct 31, 2018 11:16 PM by youseiki

Can't wait for them to make Levi black LOL

Oct 30, 2018 9:11 PM by Infatuate

99% of the American live-action adaptation of anime that I have seen turned out to be garbage. However, this could work. Hollywood has more budget than whoever did the AoT Jap. Live-Action adaptation, there's going to be none of that "whitewashing" here since the characters (except Mikasa) aren't even Japanese which means they only need to cast 1 Asian character and the director of this movie is the same director as "It". "It" is one of THE BEST modern horror movie I have ever seen and it reminded me that modern horror movies can still be good.

Oct 30, 2018 6:47 PM by jc9622

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Oct 30, 2018 4:52 PM by Meira_Eve

lmaoooooooooooooo.

My Hero Academia is still worse but we should all be afraid.

Oct 30, 2018 4:20 PM by Stripes

I am afraid. Very. Very afraid.

Oct 30, 2018 4:19 PM by returntothenhk

I'm half white half asian and going by what's on screen, Mikasa came out looking a lot less asian than I did. You could cast a white girl who looks like she might be mixed, it would be fine on the level of appearances. Having one hot young asian woman in a Hollywood film wouldn't exactly be a victory for representation anyway. Well, maybe if the role were intact enough to be better than the stereotypical.

I expect this movie will make mega bucks in Japan / the asian market; apparently when they watch Hollywood movies they'd rather see exotic white people than American asians. (At least according to a documentary I saw on PBS when The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift came out.)

FoxyKaizoku said:
Caucasians? European?... Goodness, do you know the definition of "style"?

In addition to being uninformed, you seem to be confused: many Japanese anime characters do indeed "look white" because that's the result of the art style. But the noses on most Attack on Titan characters make it clear that this isn't that style. (Compare Monster, which also featured many realistically drawn europeans.) Mikasa of course has the typical small anime nose of an asian character.

Oct 30, 2018 4:00 PM by nDroae

Danae said:
give it a rest already live-action adaptations never work

Rurouni Kenshin's did, but I agree most tend to suck.

Oct 30, 2018 3:07 PM by Playcool

This could finally work because the director is gonna be the guy who directed IT. That mofo got a lot of potential.

Oct 30, 2018 1:54 PM by GabiBats

I doubt this will be much different from the Japanese live-action films, except for maybe improved VFX.

Oct 30, 2018 1:54 PM by Haneken2086

give it a rest already live-action adaptations never work

Oct 30, 2018 12:49 PM by Danae

FoxyKaizoku said:
"Hey, there's this anime called "Attack on Titan". Yeah, the manga has more than 100 chapters and the anime is about 70 episodes long with more to come... yeah-yeah, it's 23 hours total and the story is not finished"

"Cool... though, I don't want to watch 70 episodes. What, a Japanese movie-adaptation? Nah, I don't like Japanese. LET'S MAKE OUR OWN MOVIE"

"But we can't adapt it properly and the story, aesthetics would not work in a movie format..."

"I WANT AN AMERICAN MOVIE"

"We can't do that..."

"AND NO ASIANS"

please name an entire cast of asians that are fully recognisable in the west. in fact, name 5.

even if you can, are you seriously implying the movie would do well with a different race of people? lmao think harder son

EDIT
nvm you got destroyed already

Oct 30, 2018 11:51 AM by TomDay

This could work. AoT needs a high budget for a live action. The only problem will be the director, writers and actors.

Oct 30, 2018 11:51 AM by Guranto-kun

FoxyKaizoku said:

toutoune134 said:

Except it does. Spoilers for the manga, but

Plus, just use your damn common sense dude. When you got a name like "Kiyomi Azumabito" in the manga, you bet your ass you think of an Asian. Or "Eren Jaeger" will probably remind you of a European. This is PURPOSELY done because the characters are based off of our real world.

Oct 30, 2018 8:24 AM by ixaa

A Hollywood adaptation, sounds like a grand idea, nothing can go wrong ... ... ...

More seriously, I wonder who they will get to play Levi and Erwin, I’m asking for a friend... For science!

Okay: Attack on Titan dream casting — go! Thoughts anyone?

Oct 30, 2018 8:10 AM by DhampirParadox

It should be at least better than japanese live-action. Japan does not know how to make a good live-action films

Oct 30, 2018 7:16 AM by thepath

Hollywood is battling on who can make the worst live action movie.

Oct 30, 2018 7:03 AM by MrAwesome2018

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