After One Piece, Dragon Ball, and Bleach, Naruto is also supposed to get a live-action adaptation. However, things do not look very promising. Initial reports describe it as a disaster
and memories of Dragon Ball Evolution resurface.
What information is there about the Naruto movie? The author and director of the live-action film for Lionsgate is Destin Daniel Cretton. He has directed and written nearly all of his productions, and his last two projects were Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021 and Just Mercy in 2019.
Kishimoto has also commented on Cretton, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and it was quite positive.
When I heard about Destin’s hiring, I was watching one of his action movies, and I thought he would be the perfect director for Naruto.
Masashi Kishimoto about Destin Daniel Cretton (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
Overall, this all sounds pretty positive, especially since Just Mercy and Shang-Chi were not catastrophic films either. Especially Shang-Chi had some cool fight scenes in the first half. However, behind the scenes, things seem to be going poorly, as a journalist reportedly learned at Comic-Con.
The adaptation of Saint Seiya was also a disaster: This anime adaptation flops just as hard as everyone feared.
Allegedly, the responsible parties don’t even know the source material
What do insiders say? Journalist Matt McGloin from Cosmic Book News is said to have received information about the Naruto movie from insiders at Comic-Con. It is said to be a complete disaster
, as he was told.
The current state of the film is said to be on par with the notorious Dragonball Evolution from 2009. Apparently, the creators behind the series also do not have much knowledge about the manga and anime source material. Allegedly, they don’t even know who the villains are.
Can we trust the insiders? That is hard to say. Such reports must always be taken with a grain of caution, but other facts indicate a difficult situation for the film, which can certainly be described as a disaster
.
Work on the Naruto movie has been ongoing since 2015, as reported by Collider. Originally, Michael Gracey was supposed to work on it. As a director, he has made only three films, the most famous of which is The Greatest Showman from 2017.
However, he distanced himself from the project in 2018, as he was not convinced by the script and implied that Kishimoto was also not involved. It was not until 2024 that Destin Daniel Cretton was officially hired.
When and how the Naruto movie will be released is still unclear. So far, there is little information about the film. Only the studio and the director are known. Cretton himself is also still working on Shang-Chi 2. With American Born Chinese, he has now also directed a series on Disney+. Anime adaptations are a tricky business. At least the Netflix series of One Piece has been convincing and secured another season: One Piece on Netflix gets season 2 and a new character is joining
