Live-Action Adaptation of NARUTO Is in Development and Creator Mavashi Kishimoto Is Involved
Over the weekend during the Jump Festa event, it was confirmed that Lionsgate was developing a feature film adaptation of the popular manga and anime Naruto. It was also confirmed that creator Mavashi Kishimoto is involved with the development of the film and will help director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) in the process of bringing it to life. The story follows teenage ninja Naruto Uzumaki, who dreams of becoming the village ninja, which is the community’s protector and leader.
Back in 2015,there were rumors that Lionsgate was developing this film, but there’s been no news on it since, so I wasn’t sure what the status was. Now we know! Avi Arad has been attached to the film as a producer since it was announced, and if you don’t already know, he’s been involved with all of the previously made Spider-Man and X-Men films along with a ton of other Marvel projects developed by Sony and Fox.
Hopefully the involvement of Kishimoto will help ease the fan’s minds about this Naruto adaptation. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how much influence he actually has on the film when we start seeing what the footage looks like. Some exclusive pre-production art from the film was shown off at the event, but I haven’t seen any of it pop up online yet. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how this turns out. Maybe there's a chance that Kishimoto can keep Hollywood from butchering it.
Source: Anime News Network