Regardless of how you felt about last year’s Blair Witch, Adam Wingard has earned more than enough goodwill with genre flicks like You’re Next and The Guest to ensure that we’ll be stoked to see whatever he does next. That would be Death Note, his American adaptation of the classic Japanese manga, starring Willem Dafoe as a spiky-headed and mega-creepy, self-described “death god” (I mean, what did you expect).
What would you do if you mysterious notebook fell into your hands and gave you the power to kill anyone? Maybe you’d write the name of a high school enemy or a crappy ex in the notebook just for giggles, then realizing its murderous magic is for real, quickly toss it out the window and run away. But for Light Turner, he decides to use that notebook for all the power it gives him.
Back before he made fascinating films like Adaptation. and Her, Spike Jonze was best known for directing music videos for the likes of Bjork, the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim — the latter is of particular relevance here, as Jonze’s latest project is a wildly entertaining perfume ad evocative of his classic video for “Weapon of Choice.” You might even call it “Weapon of Choice 2.0.”
HBO’s The Leftovers has almost a yearly tradition of shifting locales, but with a rumored move so drastic as Australia, many had to wonder if the third and final season would plausibly take everyone down under. Thankfully, it seems most all of The Leftovers’ Season 2 cast will participate in the final year (along with a happy promotion), though we might expect a shorter run than 10 episodes.
After delivering two great genre features back to back with the subversive horror flick You’re Next and throwback thriller The Guest, director Adam Wingard definitely has our full attention, regardless of what he does next. His new project is Death Note, based on the popular Japanese manga, with The Leftovers star Margaret Qualley now in talks to join the cast of the U.S. adaptation.