Guillermo del Toro Wants To Helm A Live-Action Anime Adaptation

Nothing is ever guaranteed when it comes to live-action anime. Over the years, more bad than good has come from the genre, but Hollywood is keen on stopping that cycle these days. Japan’s billion-dollar industry is looking increasingly attractive to Western studios, but that has not always been the case.

Just ask award-winning director Guillermo del Toro. He will tell you how hard it is to get a network to sign off on an anime adaptation.

Last night, the world cheered the Mexican director as del Toro took home his very first Oscar. The Shape of Water helped the man earn an Academy Award for Best Director before it went on to earn the night’s most coveted honor for Best Picture. With film fanatics around the world looking at del Toro, many are curious what he’ll do next.

So, if anyone is listening, please help del Toro do his live-action take on Monster.

In the past, del Toro has juggled pitches for a live-action take on Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. The director is a longtime fan of the horror-thriller series, and del Toro has tried to get a network to back his vision for the manga. However, HBO wound up passing on the project when it came across the network’s desk.

During an interview with Latino Review a few years back, del Toro confirmed Monster had been passed on by HBO. “No, it’s out of HBO, and now we’re going to take it to other places but it’s not active active until we pitch it,” del Toro said (via Crunchyroll).

“We are going to other companies to pitch it and see if anyone wants to do it. We finished writing a couple of the episodes, and so we have a sampler. We’re going to go and see what happens with that, but very likely that will happen somewhere next year.”

Sadly, that interview took place in 2015 and nothing has happened with Monster so far. The live-action adaptation had been eyeing a 2013 debut at first after New Line Cinema purchased film rights for an initial 2009 project. Much like Akira‘s adaptation, this take on Monster has been stuck in development purgatory, but del Toro has more clout today than ever before. If the director chose to make the adaptation his next project, then he has what it takes to reverse Hollywood’s longstanding anime curse.

Would you like to see del Toro tackle anime for Hollywood? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!