Willem Dafoe (‘Justice League,’ ‘Finding Dory,’ ‘The Hunter’) has been tapped to lend his voice to Ryuk the Shinigami in the upcoming live-action adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s massively popular ‘Death Note.’
Starring Nat Wolff (‘Paper Towns’), the story follows an intelligent high school student who goes on a secret crusade to eliminate criminals from the world after discovering a notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is written into it.
In the source material Ryuk is a bored death spirit who drops a Death Note in the human realm for someone to find, hoping to amuse himself.
Adam Wingard (‘Blair Witch,’ ‘The Guest,’ ‘You’re Next’) is attached to direct, with Margaret Qualley (‘The Nice Guys,’ ‘The Leftovers’), Keith Stanfield (‘Straight Outta Compton’), Paul Nakauchi (‘Alpha and Omega’), and Shea Whigham (‘Kong: Skull Island’) also starring. Dafoe’s involvement was first reported by Mashable.
Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee (‘Dark Water,’ ‘The Lake House,’ ‘Shutter’), Lin Pictures’ Dan Lin (‘This Side of the Truth,’ ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘The LEGO Movie’), Viz Productions’ Jason Hoffs (‘Edge of Tomorrow’), and actor Masi Oka (‘Heroes,’ ‘Hawaii Five-0’) are producers.
DEATH NOTE premieres globally on Netflix sometime in 2017.