With a huge worldwide take in its animated form of $355 million, we weren’t surprised back in 2017 that Your Name got a pickup for its rights to be made into a live-action film – especially after it did a huge $85 million in China, a location where studios are continuing to look to find inroads into. Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot have aligned with TOHO to create a live-action film with Eric Heisserer on board to write the script. Heisserer has a number of credits to his name, including some comic writing, but he was also being the Oscar-nominated script for Arrival.
Back in 2019, we had heard that Marc Webb was on board to direct the film but that fell through eventually and then in the fall of 2020 it was revealed that Lee Isaac Chung of Minari fame was stepping into the director’s chair. The plan at the time was that he’d work from the draft done by Emily V. Gordon after Hesserer’s original draft was done. Now, Chung has departed the project citing scheduling conflicts, which with the way productions are being shifted around so much due to the pandemic fallout, isn’t a surprise. Paramount is looking to fast-track a director for the project to move it forward again according to Deadline.
The localized film is going with a story based on “a young Native American woman living in a rural area and a young man from Chicago discover they are magically and intermittently swapping bodies. When a disaster threatens to upend their lives, they must journey to meet and save their worlds.”
Makoto Shinkai commented on adaptation back in 2017, saying, “When such a work is imbued with Hollywood filmmaking, we may see new possibilities that we had been completely unaware of – I am looking forward to the live-action film with excited anticipation.”
Check out our review of the anime feature film.
The anime film was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai with Masashi Ando on board as the animation director while Masayoshi Tanaka is handling the character designs. Animation was produced by Comix Wave. It features the song Zen Zen Zense from RADWIMPS.
The Japanese cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Masami Nagasawa as Miki Okudera, Etsuko Ichihara as Hitoha Miyamizu, Ryou Narita as Katsuhiko Teshigawara, Aoi Yuuki as Sayaka Natori, Nobunaga Shimazaki as Tsutomu Fujii, Kaito Ishikawa as Masahiro Takagi and Kanon Tani as Yotsuha Miyamizu.
The English language dub of the film was directed by Stephanie Sheh and Michael Sinterniklaas at NYAV Post. The English cast includes Michael Sinterniklaas as Taki Tachibana, Stephanie Sheh as Mitsuha Miyamizu, Kyle Hebert as Katsuhiko Teshigawara, Cassandra Morris as Sayaka Natori, Ben Pronsky as Tsukasa Fujii, Ray Chase as Shinta Takagi, Catie Harvey as Yotsuha Miyamizu, Scott Williams as Toshiki Miyamizu, Michelle Ruff as Futaba Miyamizu, Marc Diraison as Taki’s Father, H.D. Quinn as Teshigawara’s Father, Michelle Ruff as Teshigawara’s Mother, Katy Vaughn as Yukari Yukino, Laura Post as Miki Okudera and Glynis Ellis as Hitoha Miyamizu.
Plot Concept: The story is set one month after a comet that has fallen for the first time in a thousand years in Japan. Mitsuba, a high school girl living in the countryside, wants to live in the city because she is tired of life in the country. Then, there’s Taki. He’s a high school student living in Tokyo with his friends while working as a part-timer at an Italian restaurant. He also has a strong interest for fine arts involving architecture. One day, Mitsuba dreams of herself as a young man. On the other hand, Taki also has a dream where he is a female student attending high school in the countryside. What’s the secret behind their dreams?
