Anime Film Your Name is Getting a Live-Action Remake

Your Name, also known as Kimi no Na wa, is getting a live-action Hollywood remake. The hit blockbuster anime film, which was released in Japan in August 2016, is heading to Hollywood in a reimagined adaptation. The man in charge of this is Lee Isaac Chung, an award-winning director. His most recent film, Minari, has garnered Grand Jury and Audience Awards at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

According to Deadline, Chung will base Your Name’s story from Emily V. Gordon’s draft and not from the original script of Academy Award-nominated Eric Heisserer. In our previous news about Makoto Shinkai’s hit anime movie, J.J. Abrams is still the movie’s producer and Genki Kawamura is still the original producer. Toho will handle the distribution in Japan and Paramount will take care of the rest of the world. Here’s a snippet of what’s to come in Your Name’s reimagined adaptation, according to Deadline:

Two teenagers discover they are magically and intermittently swapping bodies. When a disaster threatens to upend their lives, they must journey to meet and save their worlds.”

In a previous interview with Heisserer, he revealed that the Japanese rights holders to Your Name wanted a Western version of the celebrated anime. According to him, the holders expressed that if they just wanted to make a live-action film of the movie, they can do it themselves, “but they want to see it through the lens of a western viewpoint”.

With fans worldwide, most of them are curious to see the end product of this Your Name remake. If you’re familiar with the movie, it revolves around two teenagers, one living in Tokyo, and the other in the town of Itomori, on the outskirts of Japan. The girl’s family is involved in a Shinto tradition and the ritual “kuchikamizake” that she did, is crucial to the film’s story.

It’s exciting and interesting to see the outcome of this western-built reimagining. What are your thoughts on this? Let’s hope this adaptation will live up to the anime’s big expectations.