Adapting the Unadaptable: A Case Study of Netflix’s Current Flagships

Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest MCU joint, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, a movie that I am somehow excited about even though I rolled my eyes very heavily at the plot contrivances at the events of No Way Home, is out in theaters. This also means, we’re about a month out from the announcement that Destin Daniel Cretton had started the search to cast Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura for a live-action Naruto adaptation. I suppose a lot of the excitement for the latter is going to be predicated on the former, but the thought certainly got something stirring. When Chris, the fellow BNP writer who shared the news with me, posted he also jested “I would ‘simply say not adaptable’ but One Piece Live Action exists, so what do I know?” The funny thing is that right now Netflix has two live action properties that adapt beloved fan material that finished dropping their second seasons this summer and have managed to both prove and disprove simultaneously that it is in fact possible to adapt an animated series. So, let us look at why we adapt things in the first place before we discuss the highs of One Piece and the lows of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Reasons We Revisit… There is a cynical part of me that looks at the attempts of adaptations as an easy cash grab. The property has proven itself in some capacity, so why risk making something new when you can remake something old. Disney is currently playing this song and dance double time to mixed (if not utterly bad) results, but it is the path…