This impressive turnaround helped bolster the studio’s reputation ahead of confirmation it was working on a Samurai Champloo adaptation, another of Shinichirō Watanabe’s beloved works, heavily stylized albeit more grounded than Cowboy Bebop. But beyond even that, a manga and anime giant deserves the live-action treatment even more, and has struggled for years to get off the ground.
Netflix Absolutely Must Give This Anime & Manga the Live-Action Treatment Next
While the fight choreography and stuntwork have been highly encouraging for Tomorrow Studios as it heaps on more projects, one even more grounded live-action project would be perfect for them, or similar studios, would be Monster. The series has languished in development hell since its film adaptation announcement in 2005, but the more exciting prospect is a live-action streaming series.
In fact, Guillermo del Toro has been pushing for years to bring Monster to live-action via an HBO series, with Stephen Thompson (Sherlock) to write the pilot. While del Toro has yet to land a home for this series, he has reassured fans as recently as 2022 that he and the team are trying every year.
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Del Toro has remained busy, though, cultivating a strong relationship with Netflix through the releases of his Tales of Arcadia franchise, as well as Cabinet of Curiosities, Pinocchio, and most recently, Frankenstein. Set aside the amusing juxtaposition of Monster’s hypothetical production right after Frankenstein, del Toro makes the most sense to bring a prestige adaptation to life.
Whether Tomorrow Studios is ultimately the right pick is another matter, as their production team has shown an outward appreciation for the source material they adapt like in One Piece, and the challenges of adapting believable-yet-fantastical worlds. But Monster is no such story, being particularly realistic, perhaps unsettlingly more so in the present climate with its later twists.
Monster Would Be Perfect as a Live-Action Mystery for Netflix’s Audience
Given Netflix already streams the original 2004 Monster anime, almost exclusively for much of the world, it seems the most logitstically fitting to get its live-action adaptation there, too. Plus, with another prestige Naoki Urasawa adaptations there as a Netflix-exclusive, it could reasonably work alongside its impressive Nordic Noir collection and sci-fi mysteries like Dark.
Monster begins its story with a classic moral dilemma when its neurosurgeon protagonist, Dr. Kenzo Tenma, is faced with two critically-ill patients: Mayor Roedecker, or the young boy with a gunshot wound to the head admitted before him. Tenma chose the latter, saving Johan Liebert, while Roedecker ultimately died, triggering Tenma’s social status to crumble, with an even darker consequence.
It turns out, though, that saving young Johan would unleash a true monster upon society, with a trail of bodies to come in the following years as a long-form trolley problem manifests. Tenma follows the mysterious killer he unknowingly allowed to live down a dark rabbit hole in post-war Germany, perfect mystery fodder for Netflix audiences to enjoy in live-action.
Even casting for Monster’s live-action adaptation has been in some parts tied by the fans to their experiences with Netflix’s properties. That same tweet chain to which del Toro replied, was about how Jamie Campbell Bower, fresh off his debut in Stranger Things season 4, would be a phenomenal adult Johan Liebert. Netflix’s audiences are already craving live-action Monster.
However, for now, this is a matter of which studio ultimately takes on the project. With del Toro directing as originally planned, Monster would be one of his coolest projects ever, and similarly long-awaited as Frankenstein was. While the film rights were obtained by New Line Cinemas, HBO passed on del Toro’s Monster, leaving at least one obtainable acquisition for Netflix ahead.