Netflix’s live-action series adaptation of Death Note has found its writer.
Halia Abdel-Meguid has been tapped to write and executive produce the Netflix live-adaptation series based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Abdel-Meguid is a “longtime fan” of the original Death Note manga, as well as the anime adaptation. She also speaks fluent Japanese and even lived in Tokyo for a time (via Deadline).
Abdel-Meguid got her start as an actor and musician in London before pursuing screenwriting. In addition to writing Death Note, the writer has also been tapped to adapt Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City into a series for Hulu.
A live-action Death Note series was first announced in July this year, with The Duffer Bros of Stranger Things set to produce. The series will fall under the duo’s new production company, Upside Down Pictures.
Death Note is one of the multiple Upside Down projects currently in the works at Netflix as part of the Duffer Brothers’ overall deal with Netflix. Abdel-Meguid is also a writing consultant on Upside Down and Netflix’s planned series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman.
Death Note tells the story of Light Yagami, a polite and intelligent but cynical and narcissistic teenager who happens upon the Death Note, a notebook belonging to the Shinigami (i.e. god of death) known as Ryuk. Light discovers that he can kill anyone by simply writing their name in the notebook while thinking of their face.
Adopting the moniker of “Kira,” he uses the notebook to kill violent criminals, though quickly goes mad with power, believing himself to be the only one capable of creating a just world. He undertakes this mission while trying to keep the police (including his own father) off his trail. Light’s ultimate foil in all of this is L, an eccentric, world-renowned detective with whom he finds himself in a game of cat and mouse.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, for behind all this makeup, is a geek just like you. To simply put it, superheroes, Star Wars, Harry Potter and all things gore and creepy makes this girly girl swoon.
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