Once upon a time there was a little eight-volume Japanese manga that was very popular. It was so popular in fact that the powers that be decided there should be a live-action version (and a sequel) of it. And thus it came to be so.
The end? Oh, contraire, my friends. DEATH NOTE (DESU NOTO) made a very solid $22,000,000 at the Japanese box-office and its sequel, DEATH NOTE 2, made an even heftier $41,000,000. Then there was the little spin-off called L: CHANGE THE WORLD (directed by Hideo Nakata, who directed the original RINGU and the U.S.’s THE RING 2), which grossed $29,000,000. These dollar amounts may not seem all that huge in comparison to U.S. box-office figures, but they’re mighty big in Japan. DEATH NOTE and DEATH NOTE 2 were numbers 17 and 10 respectably at the Japanese box-office in 2006 and L is number 3 in 2008 at the time of this writing. Continue reading “Death Note – Live-Action Version of the Popular Manga”