'Your Name' Live-Action News: Popular Anime Gets US Adaptation from J.J. Abrams
Bad Robot, the production company owned by JJ Abrams who directed "Star War: The Force Awakens," will develop a live-action adaptation of the highly popular Japanese anime "Your Name." The company will partner with Paramount Pictures for the film's U.S. adaptation.
Bad Robot tapped Oscar-nominated "Arrival" scribe Eric Heisserer for the adaptation but a director has not yet been named. Abrams will oversee the project as executive producer along with Lindsey Weber. Genki Kawamura, who worked on the original Japanese movie, will also be on board as producer.
"Mr. Abrams and his team have captivated audiences in their masterful reinvention of known properties," Kawamura stated in announcing the project with Bad Robot.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"The meetings so far have been creatively stimulating with fantastic ideas that no doubt will make for a great movie," Kawamura said, adding that he's excited for Hollywood treatment of "Your Name."
In 2016, the low-budgeted film "Your Name" became the highest-grossing anime movie around the world by earning $355 million at the box office. Makoto Shinkai wrote and directed the movie about a boy and girl from two different places who learned that they could swap their bodies. Cheating space and time, the teenagers went on a quest to find each other in person in the midst of a looming disaster.
Young Japanese moviegoers saw "Your Name" in theaters multiple times. It eclipsed "Frozen" at the box office in Japan, which was then the highest-grossing film.
Meanwhile, Abrams will mark the next two years as a busy time in his career. Lucasfilms signed him up as the new director of "Star Wars: Episode 9" after Colin Trevorrow left the project. He's also doing the finishing touches to the "Overlord" World War II horror flick with Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell.
Abrams' Bad Robot is also doing the third movie in his "Cloverfield" franchise called "God Particle." The film will star Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Zhang Ziyi.
