Hollywood Adaptation of Your Name. Finds New Director

In September 2017, the J-List Blog posted an article reporting that a Hollywood live-action remake of the hit anime movie Your Name. would be produced by J.J. Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot. Well, here we are over five years later and we have learned that the movie is still in the scriptwriting phase. 

In a new report that hit the internet on Monday, October 31st, they revealed that the planned live-action adaptation had found its third new director since they made the initial announcement. The latest person to be brought on to help bring the feature to life is Carlos López Estrada, who is being tasked with giving the current script a rewrite and also directing. None of the sources I read had any updates regarding a potential timeline on when this movie is expected to begin production. 

It’s been a long, hard road for the planned Hollywood adaptation of the Makoto Shinkai movie, which captivated audiences around the world in 2016. After the announcement was first made, the production company announced in 2019 that the director would be Marc Webb, but a short time later it was revealed that he was being replaced by Lee Isaac Chung who was also going to be rewriting the script penned by Emily V. Gordon. In the summer of 2021, however, the movie hit another stumble when Chung left due to scheduling conflicts.

If you’ve never seen the acclaimed movie within the last few years (or even if you have), it’s absolutely worth noting that the movie is now available to stream on Crunchyroll, who describes the plot as: 

Mitsuha and Taki are total strangers living completely different lives. But when Mitsuha makes a wish to leave her mountain town for the bustling city of Tokyo, they become connected in a bizarre way. She dreams she is a boy living in Tokyo while Taki dreams he is a girl from a rural town he’s never visited. What does their newfound connection mean? And how will it bring them together?

Sources: Variety, Anime News Network, Crunchyroll News