Warner Bros. Won’t Stop Buying Anime to Make Horrible Live-Action Movies of: Bleach Edition

?Flush with success from their bewilderingly successful live-action adaptations of Dragonball Z and Akira, Warner Bros has optioned the movie right sto Tite Kubo’s long-running shonen manga Bleach. No doubt this movie will join WB’s pantheon of great — huh? What’s that? The Dragonball Z movie with a critical and commercial failure, and WB still hasn’t even made Akira yet, and instead just keeps ordering new scripts and cutting down the budget? Oh well. Then I guess Warner Bros is at best not going to make a Bleach movie, and only keep the rights in development hell, and at worst will make a terrible Bleach movie. From Variety:

Warner Bros. has acquired live-action feature rights to Tite Kubo’s
manga and anime property “Bleach,” which will be adapted by “Wrath of
the Titans” scribe Dan Mazeau.

Peter Segal (“Get Smart”) will produce with an eye toward possibly directing.

With
more than 75 million print copies in circulation in Japan alone,
“Bleach” follows the adventures of Ichigo, a teenager who can see
ghosts. When his family is attacked by a Hollow — a malevolent lost
soul — Ichigo inadvertently absorbs the power to hunt Hollows. He
then dedicates his life to protecting the innocent and helping tortured
souls find peace.

Segal’s Callahan Filmworks partner Michael Ewing
will also produce along with Masi Oka and Viz Prods., a subsidiary of
Viz Media, the English-language publisher of “Bleach.” Jason Hoffs will
produce for Viz, while Branon Coluccio will exec produce. WB exec Jon
Berg will oversee the project for the studio.

Oka, who co-starred in Segal’s “Get Smart,” brought the project to Callahan Filmworks.

Hmm. Written by the guy who wrote the sequel to the hilariously shitty Clash of the Titans remake and directed by the guy who did the Get Smart remake? Well, that’s a fine pedigree. Can’t see any issues there.

Sigh. The sad thing is I think Bleach would make a much easier transition to American movie screens than Akira or DBZ. It’s basically a supernatural action story at heart, and while they use swords and kimonos, that’s something that can be adapted for Western audiences without messing with the intrinsic story or anything. However, given WB’s track record, I expect this to be yet another total anime movie disaster. Anyone disagree? (Via Anime News Network)