“Death Note” Movie Adds Willem Dafoe as Ryuk the Shinigami

Other cast member includes Nat Wolff as protagonist Light Turner; Keith Stanfield as intrepid detective with a sweet tooth, L; Margaret Qualley as Mia Sutton; Paul Nakauchi as Watari; and Shea Whigham as Light’s father and police officer, James Turner.

Death Note is now filming for a 2017 release.

According to Mashable, Dafoe is set to voice Ryuk the Shinigami, a character created for the original Japanese manga from which the upcoming film is based. Which is too bad, since Dafoe might be the only actor in Hollywood who actually looks the part.

I’m not a person that watches a lot of anime, but one of the (very few) series that has really stuck with me is Death Note, the story of a young man who finds a supernatural notebook that gives him the power to kill anyone by simply writing their name inside. Drunk on power, he begins to kill those he deems unworthy of life. At first, authorities are puzzled by the seemingly random string of deaths. He acts as a sort of confidant to the main character, taking a twisted pleasure in sitting back and watching the mayhem unfold.

Adam Wingard’s live-action adaptation of the popular manga DEATH NOTE has just added a famous face: Willem Dafoe. Warner Bros. was originally going to pick up the project until the studio dropped it and, much like the winged death gods, Netflix swooped in.

Death Note is being produced by Roy Lee of The Ring and Dan Lin of Sherlock Holmes, along with Jason Hoffs and Masi Oka.