According to Variety, Charles Melton (Riverdale) is in closing talks to play Kakashi Hatake in the live-action Naruto movie from Destin Daniel Cretton.
This is particularly interesting given the heavy speculation that Melton would be joining the cast of X-Men, announced last week, until an apparent last-minute dropout. According to the report, the casting process for the upcoming Naruto film began last month with the hope of finding the live-action versions of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. The popular anime that it’s being adapted from follows Naruto, who dreams of becoming his community’s leader known as the village ninja. There is no confirmation at this stage that the reports are true, but it would make an exciting casting choice and could explain why Melton wasn’t part of the X-Men announcement.
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It could make for an exciting popular collaboration between the actor and director. Melton has been getting huge amounts of praise recently for his work in May December, directed by Todd Haynes, as well as his roles in Beef, Riverdale and Her Private Hell. Meanwhile, Cretton is coming off a mega hit in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is blowing all records out of the water (including potentially becoming the first film to reach $1 billion domestically).
Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Emmy Yu will produce the film for Arad Productions with Jeremy Latcham. Cretton is producing alongside Jeyun Munford through his company, Hisako. There was a previous attempt in 2014 to get an adaptation off the ground with Michael Gracey attached as director, but it didn’t pull through.
We will update more on this story when we have it!
