Death Note, Netflix’s American adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s renowned manga, is said to have a sequel in the works at the streaming service.
The Guest and Blair Witch director Adam Wingard helmed the first film and we’d expect him to return for the follow-up but details on the sequel are scarce. Netflix buried the announcement in an announcement by The Hollywood Reporter about the future of their movies.
Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos noted that the first film was a “sizeable” success and that’s all we’ve heard from the streaming service on it. Whether Nat Wolff and Willem Dafoe will return as their characters, Light and Ryuk, remains to be seen.
Death Note premiered to lukewarm reviews but seemed to find its own fans amongst viewers, and though Sarandos observes that it was a success for Netflix, exact viewing figures are traditionally a tightly kept secret at the company.
Greg Russo, who will also pen the upcoming Resident Evil reboot, has signed on to pen the script for Death Note 2 and we anticipate Wingard will also board the project. The director only had positives to say about the idea of a sequel.
“At the end of the day, there are a lot of places to explore where to take Light. And ultimately the series is sort of about almost his downfall as a character. This is sort of the beginning of it or the origin of it,” he said before Death Note‘s release. “There are definitely lots of places to go, and we know generally where we would take it. Hopefully people will watch it and Netflix will order a sequel. They definitely are ready to. They just need people to watch it.”
We’ll keep you updated on Death Note 2 as it enters production.