For years, fans of Japanese manga Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata have enjoyed various iterations of the story, and now it’ll be coming to the small screen with a brand new original film on Netflix, set to debut later this year. This week, a new trailer, featurette and artwork has been released for the movie; all three of which you can check out below:
Directed by Adam Wingard (Blair Witch, You’re Next), the series stars Nat Wolff (Paper Towns), Margaret Qualley (The Leftovers), Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out), Paul Nakauchi (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End), Shea Whigham (American Hustle) and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) as the voice of Ryuk.
The film follows a high school student who’s managed to get their hands on a supernatural notebook, and it doesn’t take long for them to realise the power that’s held within. Discovering that when the owner writes someone’s name in the book while picturing their face, that person will die, the student becomes addicted to his new godlike abilities, killing those he deems unworthy of living.
Darker than much of the content available on Netflix and already adored by so many, it’s going to be interesting to see the response from viewers to Death Note, whether or not they already know of the property. It’s also intriguing to see that the streaming service have decided to go ahead with a film instead of a TV series, but hopefully all of the drama and chaos in the original manga can be captured in a couple of hours.
Death Note launches globally on Netflix on August 25, 2017.
