DEATH NOTE
DEATH NOTE How Adam Wingard’s killer anime adaptation prepared him for monstrous new territory…
Different to a death threat, but still a little bit worrying. Adam Wingard talks evil.
Where were you the day Phil Lord and Chris Miller “departed” the Han Solo spin-off? Director Adam Wingard won’t forget in a hurry. “That happened the first day I was meeting the writer on Godzilla Vs. Kong. So the phrase ‘you’re not bigger than the franchise’ was in my head the whole time.” Wingard is talking to Teasers about his new Netflix movie Death Note – an adaptation of the Japanese phenomenon – but with Legendary’s colossal 2020 crossover currently in pre-production, his attention has turned to the future. “Even though I haven’t done a $200m movie, at least doing something at this level – which was about $40m – gives you an idea of what to expect, and how to deal with that stuff.”
More on Wingard’s monster mash-up later. First there’s the small matter of Death Note, the latest Original Movie from online streaming giant Netflix. Initially published between
2003 and 2006, Tsugumi Ohba’s multi-million-selling manga has been adapted into a 37-episode anime, plus novels, videogames and a series of live-action Japanese movies. Wingard came to Death Note late, but started at the beginning. “I found out about it through my younger brother,” he recalls. “He called me a couple of years ago and said, ‘If you ever adapt something into a movie, you should do Death Note.’ At the time, I was still in the indie world so I was like, ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll just knock on Warner Bros’ door.’”
Turns out having You’re Next, The Guest and Blair Witch on your CV means knocking is no longer required. Instead, Wingard was approached by Warner Bros after Shane Black and Gus Van Sant both failed to get an adaptation off
the ground. After a year in development with writer Jeremy Slater, Warner pulled the plug, but allowed Wingard to shop the project elsewhere. Within 48 hours, Death Note was added to Netflix’s rapidly expanding roster.
It’s easy to see why from the film’s high-concept premise. Death Note follows Light Turner (Nat Wolff), a student who comes into possession of the titular notebook when it literally falls out of the sky and lands at his feet. Inscribed are a series of rules that explain the Note’s unholy power: anyone whose name is written on its pages dies. Light uses the book to eliminate the guilty with the stroke of a pen. But is it justice, or murder? Complicating matters is mysterious master detective ‘L’ (Keith Stanfield), whose formidable intellect threatens to expose Light and his partner in crime Mia (Margaret Qualley).
Wingard has made some major changes for the film, moving the action to America and distilling the manga’s labyrinthine game of cat and mouse to a lean 95-minute thriller, but remains true to the spirit of the series. “To me, it was always an examination of morality,” Wingard explains. “None of the changes we made were based around something we thought was broken. But when you take something like Death Note, which is about as Japanese as you can get, and you move it into a different country, it changes everything. We had a responsibility to do something new with it.”
One of the film’s more peculiar elements is the presence of the Shinigami, Death Gods that only the possessor of the Death Note can see. But these demonic tricksters are not to be trusted, particularly when voiced by a rarely-more-menacing Willem Dafoe. With the Japanese films going the all-CG route to underwhelming effect, Wingard was determined to keep things practical. “We took a 7ft-tall actor and put him in the costume, because one of my biggest fears is doing a movie that has bad VFX. Nothing scares me more than the colour green.”
As a man about to embark on a VFX-heavy tentpole, the irony of a greenscreen phobia isn’t lost on Wingard. One thing he isn’t afraid of is “creative differences”, which have led to a number of high-profile blockbuster departures in recent years. “The key to surviving in the studio world is: whatever movie you promised them in the beginning, you can’t stray away from it,” Wingard reveals. “Making movies at a big-budget level is a political thing, it really is.”
Political it may be, but with Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island both possessing clear directorial vision, Wingard sees Legendary’s MonsterVerse as an opportunity to put his stamp on a blockbuster in a way even the MCU and Star Wars can’t offer. “That was the main thing for me. It’s a franchise, but each movie has its own style and tone and feel to it. I want to get in there and do my version of that thing,” Wingard smiles. “When I first met with the producers, they sent me the Godzilla 2 script, and they had a look book for it, and they had an outline for Godzilla Vs. Kong. I read the Godzilla 2 script and thought it was really great, and it was obvious that they were going in a great direction, because Godzilla Vs. Kong is, in many ways, a sequel to Godzilla 2. There might be some carryover with the characters and stuff.”
But the million dollar question, of course, is how can the 100ft Kong hope to fight the 350ft Godzilla? “I’m going to be working on pre-vis and animatics to try to figure that out, because I don’t think you’re the only person with that question!” Wingard laughs. Could Skull Island’s allusion to the fact Kong’s still growing hold a clue? “Well, there you go. Without saying anything, that’s what I’m counting on, too.”
Seems Wingard isn’t the only one with a big future ahead of him.
ETA | 25 AUGUST / DEATH NOTE IS STREAMING ON NETFLIX FROM NEXT MONTH. GODZILLA VS. KONG OPENS 22 MAY 2020.
‘one of my biggest fears is Doing a movie that has bad vfx’ Adam Wingard