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Critical Role's Mighty Nein showrunner, Tasha Huo, on the challenges of adapting Naruto from manga to live action for Lionsgate

The Mighty Nein showrunner Huo said the biggest difficulty in adapting manga-then-anime Naruto was "to make it feel real and believable in the world of a live-action movie."

Tasha Huo is no stranger to adapting the impossible; just think about what she and the Critical Role gang had to do for Prime Video's The Mighty Nein. With over 550 hours of D&D actual play making up the source material, showrunner Huo led the effort to turn Campaign 2 into a concise, linear animated TV series (quite successfully, in this humble writer's opinion). That said, Huo won't pretend that some adaptations don't require quite a bit of work.

Case in point: the live-action Naruto movie she's writing for Lionsgate.

That's right, Critters, your favorite showrunner is tackling one of the most ambitious manga adaptations currently in the works, and speaking to Nexus Point News, she was happy to share some of the challenges of doing so. Asked about the translation of manga to the big screen, Huo said that the biggest obstacle to overcome was to keep it real.

"For Naruto," said the writer, who also showran Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft for Netflix, "[The challenge] 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. 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."

We're happy that there's a joy to that task, Tasha, and we're sure that will absolutely translate onto the big screen. At the same time, we don't envy the fact that you'll be working with 700 chapters of Masashi Kishimoto's OG Naruto manga to make it happen. When do you sleep, anyway?

The Mighty Nein is streaming on Prime Video now. The live-action Naruto movie is in production now, but Lionsgate has not announced a release date. 


Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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