Tag: TV

Just as the live-action One Piece series was in its earliest stages, there was much fanfare for Jamie Lee Curtis to join the Netflix series potentially. Of course, at the time we had no idea if there even would be a second season or if it’d manage to make a big enough splash with audiences. The actress has been a long-time fan of the series and is friends with Chopper voice actress Brina Palencia.

While she mentioned in interviews, that she’d love to play Robin, she knows that she might not fit that role anymore but has openly discussed playing Dr. Kureha. Chopper is her favorite character so the role just seems to make sense. As One Piece has now been renewed for a second season, the actress has gone out of her way to highlight that she is going to campaign for the role once actors and writers are paid what they are owed.

Some eagle-eyed readers also noticed that Matt Owens, the co-showrunner for the first season, highlighted that she won’t “need to lobby” and they’ll discuss the role once everything has been wrapped up. So, it seems like Curtis is a definite casting addition if they can finally get AMPTP to pay everyone what they deserve. With scripts pretty much ready according to the show’s producer, it’s the only big hindrance keeping them from getting the ball rolling on the production.

Source: Instagram

In just two weeks, Netflix has done the impossible and already renewed the live-action One Piece series. Okay, might be overdoing it but in a clever little message from Eiichiro Oda, who seems to be loving his puppet Transponder Snail, used the opportunity to confirm that the live-action series is indeed going to return for a second season. Not only that, but he goes out of his way to highlight the arrival of an iconic ship’s doctor for the Straw Hats. As an adorable little extra, he even draws up an adorable drawing based on his manga look and states that it’ll still take some time to finish the scripts.

It’s great news and hopefully a reflection of how much the studio believes in this project. Of course, we don’t know when a second season will be able to release given that Hollywood is still on strike. Hopefully, they will finally have a resolution to solve the issue; being them not paying their actors and writers fairly. It’s interesting that he says the scripts still need time given that Tomorrow Studios already confirmed they are pretty much ready to shoot.

Their big goal would be to avoid taking longer than two years for the second season to release, as that commonly has not been beneficial due to the long wait time outside of a well-established IP The show is #1 two weeks in a row and it’s uncertain if it’ll keep it up going into its third week, where they commonly see a drop. Maybe a cynical outlook could see this renewal as a way to boost its viewership going into the third week to see if it’s worth it. Either way, it’s great that we’ll get to see the Arabasta saga come to life.

source: Twitter

Showrunners Steven Maeda and Matt Owens had quite the challenge when adapting a series like One Piece. Not only is it quite unique with its more cartoon-inspired style, but generally adapting anime or manga is considered quite challenging. While there have been a few projects that did manage to pull it off, any adaptation from some of the bigger names hasn’t left the impression many would hope they would.

Tackling a series like One Piece was considered “unadaptable” due to the way Eiichiro Oda drew and wrote the series. It’s crazy to think after some of the earlier reactions to the teaser that the series actually has a strong critical reception across multiple platforms for its hopeful message and more optimistic outlook; especially in how it avoids being a very dark series. In an interview with IGN, Steven Maeda highlights that they wanted to make the series stand out with the “sunny and blue skies and open water” just to make sure “it felt good” watching the series.

That was a very conscious choice to have the show be fun and sunny and blue skies and open water and to have it feel good in addition to fun and thrilling, and a little traumatic at times when you get into some of those emotional moments and character backstories.

Steven Maeda

He also talks about how it was quite a new experience adapting the iconic series in a live-action adaptation that isn’t just for younger audiences, but also teenagers and adults. Monkey D. Luffy’s story is definitely something that also can inspire anyone of every age, no matter if they know the series or not.

It was definitely a breath of fresh air to be putting something out that felt like it had a sunnier view. And the trick in that is to take that optimism and not have it seem treacly and separate. You don’t want it to just be for little kids. You want it to resonate with teens and with adults and people who fell in love with the manga or the anime. We want to bring all those fans in. And then we also want to rope in new fans who have no idea what One Piece is, which was another challenge to find that balance between the fans of the underlying material and new people who had never heard of it before.

Steven Maeda

They also set one important rule: “embrace silly.” In an era where comic book adaptations try to either be super serious or keep everything as realistic as possible, having a show just being what it is makes it stand out. Not every show can have a pirate pillage a ship with glitter in her canons while the cannonballs have hearts painted on them.

As far as tone though, it was always: Let’s embrace silly. Let’s embrace the over-the-top nature of it. But at the same time, let’s try to make the emotion feel real and grounded. And then let’s take something like the Love Duck, which is, let’s face it, a big pirate ship that fires glittering cannonballs and has hearts on its sails, and could be absolutely ridiculous. But let’s take that ship and paint it and do all the things we need to do, build it, and then sand it down and make it look like it’s been at sea for 15 years, in order to try and at least bring some level of grit to what is otherwise a sunny and silly look.

Steven Maeda

The only challenge they had was to ensure that even with all the fun, the set design and costumes needed to showcase that time passed. Some early criticisms of the teaser trailer where that it looked “too clean” which led to some statements of it being more like cosplay rather than the real world. Still, once we saw the entire series we got a better look at everything in context.

Source: IGN

We all knew that there would be changes to the live-action adaptation of One Piece. There are a variety of characters that don’t quite serve the story the way an eight-episode structure would allow. Still, it seems that they have gone through quite a few different versions before landing on the one they currently have according to showrunner Steven Maeda. One big part was also including Arlong much earlier in the season to tie the East Blue together.

A lot of different versions of the show were discussed. Some that were a little further away from the manga, some that were closer. We ended up going a lot closer, which I’m really glad we were able to do. And it really was a discussion about why we were doing what we were doing. And so for example, with Arlong, the idea was, in an eight-episode television season, you want to have the sense that there is some big obstacle standing at the end of your journey. And so to introduce Arlong in Episode 7 and 8 only would’ve felt like: “Well, wait, who is this guy? Okay, yeah. He’s really ferocious, but I don’t really know him yet. I’ve got to get to know him.”

Steven Maeda

Of course, moving Arlong earlier into the story, it leads to a bigger challenge. Having to avoid adding just more characters to a story beat, someone had to be replaced and it seems Don Krieg was the easiest choice given how he’s more a physical threat rather than one relevant to the overall journey. His failure at the Grand Line, which remains in the story, is the one element that did make it into the story.

And so we said: “Hey, let’s move him up. Let’s introduce him in an early episode as a big bad threat that would return later in the season. And then rather than Krieg, who is a standalone antagonist who doesn’t take us really anywhere new, let’s introduce Arlong there instead.” And we still got Krieg in the show. But let’s try something a little bit different so the new audience gets the sense that there is something big and forbidding out there waiting for us.

Steven Maeda

While not everyone will enjoy the change; change is famously difficult to accept, it still offers a clever way to have the East Blue connect better. Originally, One Piece started off as a weekly story with quite a few disconnected stories outside of the surprise reveal surrounding Nami. It wasn’t until Alabasta that the series took on the structure that it famously has and it would be interesting to see if they have an easier time structuring a potential second season.

Source: IGN

The live-action adaptation of One Piece gave us a unique backdrop with many iconic sets. More than what one would expect from most modern adaptations nowadays after the pandemic limited productions in many ways. Plus, it’s a pirate adventure that’ll take place across the wide seas of the East Blue. One of the reasons they decided to film in South Africa seems to be due to executive producer Chris Symes‘ experience working on Black Sails according to producer Becky Clements.

We knew we were going to shoot there because Chris Symes, our executive producer, produced Black Sails, and he built many pirate ships for that series. There were a couple of them in place already that we knew we would have an advantage and be able to refurbish.

Becky Clements

While the location offered some beautiful and fitting backdrops for the various islands, it did bring with it, its own challenges. Clements highlights that the weather was a big challenge as it limited when they could film the various sequences; not too surprising for the long production time in 2022.

One of the challenges you have in South Africa is weather, you can shoot best at a certain time of year, so that always comes into play, and even the weather cooperated, which isn’t always the case. So we had many challenges, but we had the most professional and awe inspiring team there that just helped us pull it off.

Becky Clements

Of course, future seasons have the advantage that they have some experience in, and who knows if they will fully stick to South Africa due to the variety of climates they will face in the Grand Line. Of course, though, there are many potential ways they can make that work with the sound stages provided, as they will still need to travel with the Going Merry from island to island. Here’s hoping a season two renewal is just around the corner.

Source: Deadline

Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements from Tomorrow Studios were big drivers for pushing their work on the live-action adaptation. After the series managed to debut at a strong 18.5M viewers in its first premiere weekend, it went on to remain at the top spot in an otherwise soft first week of September. The show’s future still remains a mystery as no official confirmation has been made for a second season, but the producers are definitely just waiting for the chance.

Clements points out that they “have hopes for 12 seasons, there’s so much material” given that the series is still ongoing after 26 years and it’s unsure if it’ll end in the next three or five years after entering its “final saga.” Though there’s no certainty that the series to last that long given just how these streaming models work, it does seem that they at least have a roadmap for at least the next six years.

Everything we do is in concert with Netflix, [manga publisher] Shueisha and Oda-san, they are a part of that conversation. We’ve definitely had more thorough conversations about what we would do with Season 2 should we have the opportunity, and then less extensive conversations about where we would go for season three to six. The one thing I would say, we’re all unified in the parts of the manga that you just absolutely cannot eliminate, and that’s our guiding principle, the stories that we know and the characters that we know are important to the fans. So that really is the start in breaking future seasons. It will require a lot of conversations, but we feel lucky to have have the roadmap.

Becky Clements

We recently heard that the second season is already mapped out and ready script-wise. So, Netflix and the other studios just need to pay their writers and actors fairly so that they can jump straight into the next season. They know that getting these seasons out at regular intervals will ensure that viewership will rise, but it all depends on when they can start filming. With a strong exterior shot-focused production, they are just waiting to see how things move along before they can jump in.

I don’t know what Netflix is thinking. It would benefit us to move more quickly. Once you get into the summer months there it can get pretty windy and wet — our summer months, their winter months. It didn’t stop us last year, we did some reshooting and we shot later than we anticipated, and it worked out just fine. We try to find ways to minimize exteriors to create a safe environment for shooting and we do stuff inside when we need to.

Becky Clements

So, here’s hoping that Netflix will finally push the market to heal as there will definitely be quite a drought next year. The show’s initial viewership does seem promising for a potential second season to grow even more if they play their cards right and with a show that has the potential to grow beyond, it may be smart to think in advance to keep people interested to come back and even grow its audience.

Source: Deadline