Rumor: Netflix to Create One Piece Live-Action Adaptation
A new rumor suggests Netflix will be adapting the popular anime series One Piece into a live-action television series.
The rumor stems from Netflix’s own website, where the potential live-action show was listed with the following description:
“Monkey D. Luffy sets sail with his trusty crew to find the One Piece treasure and become the ultimate Pirate King! Based on the manga by Eichiro Oda.”
The page has since been removed from Netflix’s website, but not before users were able to grab some screenshots.
Netflix now lists One Piece, which appears to be for the live-action series considering the genre listed at bottom as ‘US TV Shows’.
No further information is known as of yet. pic.twitter.com/cQgeLbxzZQ
— The One Piece Podcast (@OnePiecePodcast) March 8, 2019
A live-action One Piece TV series was announced back in 2017 from Tomorrow Studios, the same production company behind the upcoming Cowboy Bebop live-action series.
Prison Break executive producer Marty Adelstein is attached to supervise the project.
A translation from One Piece Podcast reveals One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda encouraged fans to get excited about the news:
“There have been many talks about making a live-action series in the past 20 years. About three years ago, we began to seriously consider it. After many twists and turns, we found a good partner. Coincidentally, we made the production announcement on the 20th anniversary. I am very happy. This announcement may cause some anxiety but my one condition for the series is to never betray the fans who supported my work for 20 years. Please get excited and wait for the next report.
Please look forward to it!!”
Shonen Jump’s editor in chief Hiroyuki Nakano added:
“There have been offers from various directions about live-action before but they did not really get settled for a number of reasons. This time, it’s finally come to the point where we can make an announcement. This means that we consider the project this time to have exceeded our expectations,… so please look forward to it.”
Using Google Translate from Oricon, Adelstein described the announced One Piece show as potentialy one of the most expensive ever.
“I’m willing to make everything that I possess and absolutely make the series of” ONE PIECE “absolutely successful. The work now is the most expensive work on TV drama history And thinking about the attention around the world, it is worth investigating production costs of this scale.”
One Piece has been serialized in Shonen Jump since 1997. The story follows Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew called the Straw Hat Pirates. Their goal is to find the One Piece so he can became the next Pirate King.
The series was adapted into an anime in 1998 by Toei Animation. There have also been 13 featured films based off the manga.
The manga holds the Guinness World Record for “the most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author.” The manga is wildly successful and has sold over 455 million copies worldwide.
Are you interested in a One Piece live-action television series?