J.J. Abrams is teaming up with Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer to adapt Your Name, the beloved anime about a boy and a girl who mysteriously swap bodies. Abrams will produce the live-action adaptation through Bad Robot, working with Paramount Pictures. Genki Kawamura, producer of the original 2016 film, will also serve as a producer on the adaptation.
The film centers on two teenagers: Mitsuha, living in the mountainous Hida region of Japan; and Taki, a high schooler in Tokyo. When they begin mysteriously switching bodies, they begin searching for one another across space and time, in the hopes not only of meeting but also preventing a looming disaster. According to The Verge, Your Name was the highest grossing anime film at the worldwide box office last year.
“Just like in the film it feels like a dream,” Kawamura said in a press release. “Mr. Abrams and his team have captivated audiences in their masterful reinvention of known properties. And Mitsuha and Taki have found a perfect narrator, Mr. Heisserer, to tell their sci-fi infused love story, which gave the film such drive. The meetings so far have been creatively stimulating with fantastic ideas that no doubt will make for a great movie. I am greatly honored to work with these incredible creators in bringing to audiences the Hollywood live-action version of Your Name.”
Makoto Shinkai, who wrote and directed the original, said, “Your Name is a film created with the innate imaginations of a Japanese team and put together in a domestic medium. 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.”
Watch the trailer for the original, which looks pretty stunning:
