In the past few years, there has been a handful of popular anime turned into live-action films. A few have been good, but many have not.
Recently, Joshi Spa, a popular site aimed at Japanese women, polled 200 of its women readers ranging in ages from 30 to 49, asking them which anime they did not want to see turned into live-action movies. Let’s see which made the list! (Do note that multiple replies were allowed and that many of these were originally manga.)
20. HUNTER × HUNTER: 9％
20. Kuroko’s Basketball: 9％
18. Naruto: 9.5％
18. Mr. Osomatsu: 9.5％
17. Code Geass: 10.5％
16. Natsume’s Book of Friends: 11.5％
15. Inuyasha: 12％
14. Slam Dunk: 14％
13. Yu Yu Hakusho: 15％
12. Cardcaptor Sakura: 16％
11. Urusei Yatsura: 17％
10. Crayon Shin-chan: 19％
9. Ponyo: 21.5％
8. Princess Mononoke: 24％
6. Castle in the Sky: 25％
6. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: 25％
5. Spirited Away: 25.5％
4. Neon Genesis Evangelion: 27％
3. One Piece: 29％
2. My Neighbour Totoro: 30％
1. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: 43％
This is a good list. But the massively popular Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba does seem like a live-action adaptation is inevitable, even though the rumours that one was in the works have been debunked.
NGE had an attempt that left it in development hell, with WETA just after lord of the rings
https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/05/20/live-action-evangelion-apparently
https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/26/18758581/neon-genesis-evangelion-movie-live-action-netflix-anime
https://io9.gizmodo.com/nge-gallery-5470242
More like predevelopment hell, the horse didn’t even make it to the gate.
It’s an annoying catch 22 in that it would make a fantastic film but to get big budget backing it would need to be changed too much and likely end up sucking.
Fuck live action movies. I am over them being treated like the ultimate goal. Favourite book, comic or game becoming a movie? It almost certainly will be shit.