Death Note Director Wants A Sequel

The movie adaptation of Death Note could be just the doorway to a much larger franchise.

Director Adam Wingard (Blair Witch, You're Next) recently told Entertainment Weekly that he always planned for the first movie (which hits Netflix this week) to be a launching pad for more movies based on the world established in the classic manga the film is based on.

"When I first pitched the movie to Netflix, that was my main thing," he said. "This film is very much an origin story and there's a lot of different places we can take it. The movie really works as a closed loop. But I think ultimately it is a great property to explore. There's a lot of things that could happen from here. I would love to [be involved]."

If you're new to Death Note, the story follows a high school kid named Light (Nat Wolff) who comes across a notebook that allows him to kill whoever he wants just by writing his or her name down. A super-creepy death god named Ryuk (voiced by Willem Dafoe) dropped it on Earth just to see what would happen. Watch the first meeting between Light and Ryuk in this revealing clip.

Meanwhile, Wingard will be busy for a while. He's directing Godzilla vs. King Kong, and that's obviously a massive project, but he wants to be a part of any future Death Note films. "I am doing Godzilla vs Kong now, so that's, like, two-and-a-half-years at least, so it depends on the timing," he said. "Depending on when they want to do it, I would definitely be involved in terms of the story and all that kind of stuff."

Death Note, which also stars Keith Stanfield (Get Out) and Margaret Qualley (The Leftovers), premieres on Netflix on Aug. 25. Meanwhile, watch the trailer and find out why the movie almost never happened.