In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tasha Huo, the co-writer for the upcoming Naruto live-action film expressed her enthusiasm for the project’s direction under the writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton.
Huo praised Destin’s approach to adapting the manga, noting his deep understanding of the source material.
According to Huo, the director’s understanding of Naruto goes beyond the typical blockbuster treatment, focusing on the emotional depth of the characters and their relationships rather than solely the epic scale of the series’ world.
“I think that’s such a cool choice because he’s going to be able to capture how nuanced and special Naruto is without getting distracted by the big world that it is, which I think could easily be done by someone who’s not a fan or someone who’s coming in for a cash payday. This is definitely a movie that comes at it from a love of who Naruto is and that character and his relationships.“
Huo also shared that her first draft of the script has been completed, and Cretton has now overtaken it to fine-tune the elements to align with his creative vision.
Destin Daniel Cretton, known for his work on the Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, had been recently roped in to direct as well as pen the upcoming Naruto live-action film.
Naruto‘s creator Masashi Kishimoto had also expressed his confidence in Destin taking over, stating that he was the perfect director for bringing the beloved series to life.
Joining Cretton in the live-action project are producers Jeyun Munford, Avi Arad, Ari Arad, and Emmy Yu.
It was previously reported that Tasha Huo was working on the script for the live-action Naruto movie.
Lionsgate announced the development of a live-action film with Avi Arad through his production company Arad Productions in July 2015.
On Dec 17, 2016, Kishimoto announced that he had been asked to co-develop the film.
Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. It was serialized in Shueisha’s shonen manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump from September 1999 to November 2014, with its chapters collected in 72 tankobon volumes.
The story is told in two parts: the first is set in Naruto’s pre-teen years (volumes 1–27), and the second in his teens (volumes 28–72).
The series is based on two one-shot manga by Kishimoto: Karakuri (1995), and Naruto (1997).
Part I of the manga was adapted into an anime television series by Pierrot and Aniplex, which ran for 220 episodes from October 2002 to February 2007 on TV Tokyo. A second series, which adapts material from Part II of the manga, is titled Naruto: Shippuden and ran on TV Tokyo for 500 episodes from February 2007 to March 2017.
Source: Entertainment Weekly