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Zac Efron: Death Note Remake 'Not on the Front Burner'

Actor Zac Efron (High School Musical, Hairspray, Me and Orson Welles) answered a question from the Collider.com website regarding his possible involvement in a film adaptation of the Death Note suspense manga. Efron said, "I love Death Note, and we were, kind of, working on it right now. You know, it's not…it's definitely not something that would be coming up soon. [Turns to Me and Orson Welles director Richard Linklater] What's the classic answer, Rick? 'It's not on the front burner.' No, no, it's something that was … I feel like, regardless of whatever I say, it's going to be [interpreted by the media to be] my next movie. No, it's not. It was an idea. Who knows? I had a meeting on it."

Vertigo Entertainment revealed in 2008 that it was developing a remake of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's Death Note story and had hired Vlas and Charles Parlapanides to write the screenplay. In the hit manga, a teenager finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.

The Hollywood Reporter newspaper revealed in April that Mandalay Pictures acquired the live-action film rights to another manga/anime-related property: Shoji Gatoh's Full Metal Panic! light novels. As a self-professed "huge comic book and manga fan," Efron acknowledged at the time that he had a meeting on the Full Metal Panic! project but noted it is not "likely" to happen.

Update: More background information added.