My Hero Academia live-action movie lands Kingdom and Alice in Borderland director Shinsuke Sato

Superhero fatigue has stuck around for a while now, but fans of My Hero Academia would beg to differ. The series, after all, has spiralled into an international sensation, with the superhero tone, character development, and layered narrative charming the hearts of many.

As the action continues to unfold over the course of five anime seasons and ongoing manga chapters, another project is slowly being firmed up in the background: A live-action adaptation of this very hit title.

The project, which was first announced in 2018 by Legendary Pictures, will welcome Shinsuke Sato onboard as director, whose prominent works include historical war epic Kingdom (not to be confused with Netflix’s Kingdom), battle royale thriller Alice in Borderland, and a live-action Bleach. No writer has been attached to the upcoming film as of yet, and it’s unclear how it intends to adapt the canon material to the silver screen.

What’s known, though, is that this marks Sato’s English-language debut, so it’s likely that all eyes will be on his ability to bring that impressive Japanese adaptation mastery to a new territory.

While live-action anime adaptations are generally frowned upon and treated with scepticism by enthusiasts (with good reason, too, for the most part), the director’s track record does put him in a good position to work on a project as massive as My Hero Academia, which by the way, won a Harvey Award in 2019 for best manga.

Penned and written by Kohei Horikoshi, the work has over 50 million copies in print, with a handful of both anime and manga spin-offs under its belt. The story follows one Izuku Midoriya, who is born without a superpower, or a “quirk, in a world where quirk-equipped individuals form the majority.

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The green-haired teenager is, as such, unable to fulfil his dream of going to the superhero academy, but after a chance encounter with All Might, the world’s greatest superhero, he defies the odds and vows to become a beacon of hope for the world, quirk or no quirk.

Further details on the live-action film, including a release date, have yet to be revealed.

This article was first published in Geek Culture.