Gus Van Sant for Adaptation of DEATH NOTE?

 

From Shock Till You Drop by way of Tracking Board comes some interesting news regarding the big-screen American adaption of the best-selling franchise, Death Note in that PSYCHO and Milk director Gus Van Sant could be helming the supernatural thriller.

Dan Lin, Doug Davison, Roy Lee, and Brian Witten are producing through Vertigo Entertainment, Witten Pictures, and Lin Pictures. Vertigo and Lin Pictures were both involved with this year’s enormously popular “Lego Movie.” Lin also produced Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” and its sequel, and Lee is a producer on Vertigo and Prime Universe’s in-development adaptation of the “Thief” video game franchise.

The film was originally set to be tackled by Iron Man 3 director Shane Black, who left to go do the "sequel" to Predator. 
Either way, Van Sant is a two-time Oscar nominated director, and the source material- while crazy- might be easier to adapt than such Japanese inspired works as AKIRA that WB have been kicking around for years.

Death Note follows Light Yagami, a Japanese high-school student who accidentally comes into the possession of a "Death Note", a God of Death's notebook, which allows him to write down anyone he chooses in the notebook to die in any way or time that he writes.
His powers, that he uses to cut down crime drastically, are soon observed by the FBI and INTERPOL who recruit the mysterious "L" to hunt him, and the ultimate game of cat and mouse begins.