The live-action adaptation of One Piece has been one of the biggest surprises for fans of manga and anime recently. Eiichiro Oda’s series seemed impossible to adapt into live action, yet Netflix has undertaken a monumental task and managed to connect with its audience. But now, while we await a second season that will likely pose even more complex challenges than the first, we’ve just stumbled upon another piece of news: Naruto will also have a live-action adaptation.
Though we don’t know much yet about the future Naruto movie, what we do know is that Tasha Huo will be its screenwriter. Huo has worked on Red Sonja, Tomb Raider, and The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, so it doesn’t seem like a bad choice. However, there’s not much else known about its production… so anything could happen before its potential release.
A cursed adaptation before it even begins
But is making a movie about Naruto a good idea? Considering the manga’s popularity and the existence of similar films like the recent Knights of the Zodiac, it’s not surprising that this is happening. However, Naruto is a rather special series… and doesn’t seem easy to adapt.
There are strong points in Naruto that could facilitate its development: the characters’ realistic aesthetic, its narrative rooted in feudal Japan, and the action are noble aspects that could help the movie succeed. But there are other aspects that are considerably weaker, such as the fact that the main characters are children (at least in the first part, if they adapt it) and the aesthetic challenge foreseen at first glance.
While One Piece seemed harder to adapt and they did it well, the fact that this is a movie rather than a series doesn’t bode well for Naruto. It’s an extensive story with numerous facets, and a single film doesn’t seem to make much sense in this context. However, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
