At ACEN, I attended the Hollywood vs Otaku panel, and there was a lot of discussion on movies that might or might not make good (Hollywood?) movie adaptations. FWIW, I think that Noir would pretty much be a shoe-in for a great movie. Here’s my thinking:
- The plot allows for as many (or, for that matter, as few) action sequences as budget allows. Car chase with explosions? No problem. Shoot-outs? Gotta have shoot-outs. A special effects team could have fun with a live-action Noir, but could churn out stuff that’s been done before without serious detriment to the film.
- The environment of Noir is varied but not too exotic. Hollywood has plenty of experience depicting locations like abandoned construction, European streets, casinos, and green rolling fields.
- The plot is fairly easy to follow. No one should be walking out of the theater wondering what just happened. At the same time, it’s not too predictable: people who don’t know anything about Noir already should be in for a few surprises.
- Noir reaches the fan base: it was a very, very popular anime.
Although almost everyone at the panel agreed that the use of “A-list” actors and the tendency to cast for really good looks is a net bad, it’d be trivial to cast a famous actress with super-model looks as Mireille. (Side note: Silence tells me that he thinks Sarah Michelle Gellar [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] would be good for this role)- A touch of the mystical: Les Soldats is an almost perfect movie-villain organization. They’re weird, mysterious, religious, and utterly unlike any real organization around. And their favorite mode of attack consists of swarms of MIB.