“Marc was our first choice to direct this refashioned interpretation of the film"
The live-action remake of anime film Your Name will no longer be set in Japan.
Forbes reports the live-action remake of Your Name will not be set in Japan any more.
Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 record breaking anime movie grossed over $331,000,000 USD internationally and over took Hayao Miyazaki’s classic Spirited Away to be the highest grossing anime film of all time.
Your Name was also the first anime film not directed by Miyazaki to earn $100 million at the Japanese box office, sitting at the top spot for over nine weeks.
Consequently, the decision to make a live-action adaptation of the film was quickly announced in 2017, with JJ Abrams to produce.
It has since been announced that 500 Days Of Summer director Marc Webb will direct the live-action adaptation.
“Marc was our first choice to direct this refashioned interpretation of the film from the moment we explored creating an American version,” producer Genki Kawamura said in a statement. “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.”
However, unlike the original anime, the film will be set in the US not Japan.The original plot revolves around the gender swapping between senior high school boy Taki Tachibana and senior high school girl Mitsuha Miyamizu. The two have never met, but their fates become intertwined by the one-in-a-thousand-years fall of a comet.
Instead of two Japanese lead characters, the live-action film will star a native American and a young man from Chicago who end up switching bodies.
A release date or year is yet to be set.