According to Variety, Carlos Lopez Estrada is taking over the live-action remake of the 2016 animated film. Estrada, whose credits include Blindspotting and Summertime, is set to rewrite the screenplay and helm the film. He is the third director confirmed for the adaptation after Lee Isaac Chung departed the project back in 2021. Chung was preceded by Mark Webb who reportedly rewrote the story to follow a young Native American girl and a boy in Chicago. That’s two directors lost in just three years and now fans of the original film are doubling down on their claims that Your Name doesn’t need to be remade in the first place. Some believe that the natural charm of the Makoto Shinkai flick will be lost in translation and will not have the same effect if the storyline gets Westernized.
The original Your Name anime film was directed by Makoto Shinkai and follows Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo, and Mitsuha, a high school girl in the Japanese countryside. Although they are far apart, the two suddenly and inexplicably begin to swap bodies. The film, released in 2016, has grossed over ¥41.44 billion (US$377.59 million) and is currently the third-highest-grossing anime movie of all time after Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie - Mugen Train and Spirited Away, respectively. For now, the live-action Your Name adaptation is still in development while Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams will produce the film alongside Hannah Minghella and Jon Cohen, with Genki Kawamura, who previously worked on the original.
