Netflix’s live-action series adaptation of Death Note has found its writer.
As exclusively reported by Deadline, Halia Abdel-Meguid has been tapped to write and executive produce Death Note, Netflix’s planned live-action series based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. A graduate of the American Film Institute, Abdel-Meguid got her start as an actor and musician in London before pursuing screenwriting. In addition to Death Note, she is writing The Devil in the White City, the upcoming Hulu series based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Erik Larson.
According to Deadline, Abdel-Meguid is a “longtime fan” of the original Death Note manga, as well as the anime adaptation. She also speaks fluent Japanese and even lived in Tokyo for a time.
This past July, it came to light that a live-action Death Note series was in the works at Upside Down Pictures, the new production company formed by Matt and Ross Duffer, creators of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things. Death Note is one of multiple Upside Down projects currently in the works at Netflix as part of the Duffer Brothers’ overall deal with the streaming giant. On that note, Abdel-Meguid is also a writing consultant on Upside Down and Netflix’s planned series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman.
What’s Up, People?!
Death Note tells the story of Light Yagami, a polite and intelligent but cynical and narcissistic teenager who happens upon the Death Note, a notebook belonging to the Shinigami (i.e. god of death) known as Ryuk. Light discovers that he can kill anyone by simply writing their name in the notebook while thinking of their face.
Adopting the moniker of “Kira,” he uses the notebook to kill violent criminals, though quickly goes mad with power, believing himself to be the only one capable of creating a just world. He undertakes this mission while trying to keep the police (including his own father) off his trail. Light’s ultimate foil in all of this is L, an eccentric, world-renowned detective with whom he finds himself in a game of cat and mouse.
Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s original Death Note manga was initially serialized from 2003 to 2006, with the 108 total chapters being collected in 12 tankōbon volumes. A popular anime adaptation ran for a total of 37 episodes from 2006 to 2007, with the English broadcast taking place from 2007 to 2008. That being said, Upside Down and Netflix’s upcoming series is not the first time Death Note has been given the live-action treatment.
A live-action film adaptation of the manga simply titled Death Note released in theaters in Japan in June 2006 — four months before the anime premiered the following October. A sequel to the live-action film, Death Note 2: The Last Name, hit the big screen in Japan just another month after that in November 2006. A live-action spinoff film titled L: Change the World subsequently released in early 2008.
Years before the Duffer Brothers entered the picture, Netflix itself released a live-action film adaptation of Death Note in 2017. The project was controversial, due in no small part to its re-imagining of Light Yagami as an American teenager named Light Turner. That being said, Netflix’s planned live-action Death Note series is said to be a wholly original take on the property, with no connection to the 2017 film.
Source: Deadline
