After a set back with Akira being shelved for the time being, Warner Bros is keen on adapting another manga for the big-screen. The manga in target sight is Bleach, a popular Japanese series written by Tite Kubo where “a 15-year-old boy who has the ability to see ghosts and meets a female Soul Reaper, a member of an order that escorts the souls of the dead. A fight with an evil spirit causes the Reaper to transfer all her power to the boy, leaving her stranded in the human world and the boy taking over her job as a fighter of evil.” According to The Film Stage, Warner Bros had already picked up the rights nearly two years ago with Get Smart director Peter Segal producing. Now Peter Segal is in the director’s chair with Dan Mazeau (Wrath of the Titans) for scripting duties. What do I think of all of this? More after the jump!
Although I’m a fan of the manga (not the anime so much due to fillers), I’m not quite sure I can be excited for this considering how they treated the Akira live action adaptation. I mean, if you consider the script & premise which has nothing to do with the anime, the casting being rather vanilla colored, the location changed to an American setting which doesn’t make any sense, I was only glad to hear that the project suffered multiple production issues. Perhaps with Bleach, the studio will treat this project differently but I’m not holding my breath for that. I am however, completely open to a multi-cultural cast since the location and ethnic backgrounds do not play a crucial part in the story. In my ideal mind, getting a thorough search for the best talents around in all categories would be just peachy. Heck, if Ichigo (the main lead) was white and everybody else was truly open call in terms of ethnicity, that would make the old grumpy Hollywood execs happy and at the same time not make the cast look it came out of a 1950’s catalog.
On a final note, if they are truly being a teensy open about it with the casting, I would LOVE to audition for Uryū Ishida (given that I lose about 10-15 pounds with some sort of p90x). Hey, I do LOVE this manga after all.
