©Courtesy of Shueisha/Adult Swim
Tasha Huo, the showrunner for Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft and Amazon’s The Mighty Nein has been busy these days. Not only is she promoting both series but she’s also been working on three other projects: the script for the Red Sonja movie, the pilot for a TV series based on the Child of Light game, and co-writing a live-action film adaptation of the Naruto manga/anime franchise.
Although the live-action version of Naruto had been in the works for the past ten years, it was only last year that the process accelerated when Destin Daniel Cretton agreed to co-write and direct the film. Cretton is acclaimed for his work as director of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Still, though Cretton and Huo completed their Naruto script in August of 2024, Cretton could not move forward at the time due to his involvement as director of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Huo described the process in an interview with Nexus Point News: “For Naruto, it was to ground it, to make it feel real and believable in the world of a live-action movie. When you watch it or read it, it’s so bonkers. It’s so good, but it is so bonkers,” she was quoted as saying.
As Huo added: “The rules you just sort of kind of take for granted because of the medium you’re watching it in, but once you translate it to real people saying real lines and needing to convey real plot. Yeah, that was the challenge but also the joy of it because they’re just so fun.”
Like other films in the franchise, it deals with Naruto Uzeumaki’s odyssey to become The Hokage, the protector of the ninja village he is tied to. Masashi Shimamoto‘s original manga, which was serialized from 1999 to 2014, sold more than 250 million copies worldwide and spawned several animated series as well as video game and other merchandising spinoffs. The animated series appeared on the Cartoon Network, Disney SD, Adult Swim, among other outlets.
Shimamoto gave his blessing to the live-action adaptation. He was quoted as saying, “When I heard of Destin’s attachment, it happened to be right after watching a blockbuster action film of his, and I thought he would be the perfect director for Naruto. After enjoying his other films and understanding that his forte is in creating solid dramas about people, I became convinced that there is no other director for Naruto. In actually meeting Destin, I also found him to be an open-minded director who was willing to embrace my input, and felt strongly that we would be able to cooperate together in the production process. To put it simply, the live-action Naruto is bound to be a film with spectacular action and profound drama. I can’t help but be excited for it.”