Marc Webb has been tapped by Toho, Paramount and Bad Robot to film a western live-action adaptation of the acclaimed 2016 anime film ‘Your Name’. The original was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai and earned $358 million at the box office, making it the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time and the highest-grossing anime. Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams will serve as producer, along with Genki Kawamura, who produced the original.
The original story told of a girl named Mitsuha Miyamizu, who lives in a rural village and a boy named Taki Tachibana, who lives in Tokyo, who begin trading bodies. Mitsuha as Taki takes the initiative to begin dating his coworker, while Taki as Mitsuha becomes very popular at her high school. The two communicate with one another by leaving messages for each other for when they switch back to their normal bodies.
“In this reimagined version, a young Native American woman living in a rural area and a young man from Chicago 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.”
Webb directed the unconventional love story ‘500 Days of Summer’, and is an executive producer and director of The CW’s acclaimed ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’. But perhaps his greatest claim to fame is having directed ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’.
Kawamura stated:
“Marc was our first choice to direct this refashioned interpretation of the film from the moment we explored creating an American version. As we saw in 500 Days Of Summer, Marc has a tremendous talent for telling great love stories and in the same way moviegoers were captivated by the original film, we are certain Marc will engage fans of the original and an entirely new audience for these characters’ beautiful journey. With J.J. Abrams producing, Eric Heisserer writing and Marc directing, this project officially has the team we dreamed about.”
It was not announced when the American version of ‘Your Name’ would begin filming or be released.
Are you a fan of the original? Are you intrigued at the thought of an American live-action version?
Source: Deadline
