Netflix is developing another version of Yasuke and teaming up with some familiar collaborators to do it.
Omar Sy, the Lupin star is in talks to play the real-life legend, an African man brought to feudal Japan under enslavement who became the country’s first non-Japanese samurai, in a new live-action series. The five-part event series will be penned by military vet-turned-screenwriter Nick Jones Jr., who served as head writer for the streamer’s Yasuke anime adaptation last year.
“Getting a chance to finally bring Yasuke’s legendary true story to life has been a dream of mine ever since I served in Japan as a Marine,” Jones said in a statement.
Jones and Sy will both serve as executive producers alongside 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy and Josh Barry as well as Significant Productions’ Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi. Among 21 Laps’ many Netflix productions are The Adam Project, Shadow and Bone and megahit Stranger Things, while the streamer acquired Significant’s Passing out of Sundance last year.
“This is the perfect project for what Forest and I strive for — the intersectionality of two cultures through great storytelling,” Bongiovi said in a statement. “To bring a real-life, historical figure to the forefront, paired with incredible action, with faces that represent both Black and Asian heritage — behind the camera and in front of the camera — equates a total dream scenario.”
Whereas last year’s Yasuke anime incorporated fantasy elements, this new live-action series will be a dramatization of the historical story, focusing on Yasuke’s friendship with samurai warrior Oda Nobunaga as he rose through the ranks. 21 Laps optioned Craig Shreve’s upcoming novel African Samurai as source material and the company’s vice president of television, Paige Simpson, who brought the book to Netflix, will oversee the project alongside 21 Laps executive Moera Ainai.
“I’ve been inspired by Yasuke for quite a while,” Sy said in a statement. “With this superb team, we are creating a remarkable series showcasing what it meant to be an African samurai in Japanese history. The action sequences alone are going to be phenomenal and ingenious.”
Yasuke has appeared in numerous manga, anime and video games over the years, but if greenlit, this Netflix event series would serve as his first live-action appearance. Lakeith Stanfield voiced the character in the English-language anime, and the late Chadwick Boseman had been set to play him in a feature film from producers Erik Feig and Michael De Luca that was announced in 2019.
Sy is represented by CAA, France’s Agence Adequat and Sloane Offer. Jones is repped by Brillstein, Granderson Des Rochers and CAA. Significant is repped by WME and Cohen Gardner, and 21 Laps is repped by WME.
