As you may know, ASCII published an interview with executive producer Ozaki Masayuki a couple of days ago. In the interview he talked about how Tiger & Bunny was born, and also about what future plans for the franchise would interest him – such as live-action and musical. It seems he may have said too much (and it’s not the first time – though who can blame him for being enthusiastic?) because he further clarified his thoughts on a live-action adaptation in length on Twitter. You can read a full translation of his tweets at Crunchyroll.
“These are my personal feelings as the producer. However, at this time nobody less than a Hollywood mainstay production studio could realize the vision I have. If we don’t secure complete agreement on staff, cast, production scale, supervisory rights, etc then I don’t intend to give permission.”
– Ozaki Masayuki
The feeling I got from his tweets is that he and the other creators are very protective of Tiger & Bunny – which is a really good thing for the future of the series. Although he has ruled out a Hollywood live-action for now, a musical seems like a possibility. The Code Geass stage musical is currently in production, and I could imagine that if it does well it would be a good sign also for a Tiger & Bunny musical. As a fun fact, director Satou mentioned in an interview around September that he’d be interested in trying a musical in the future. He didn’t specify it further and I took it just as a joke but maybe he wasn’t trolling after all…
Personally I think that Tiger & Bunny would fit a live-action movie better than musical. I’m not into musicals in general, and us foreign fans would have no chance of seeing a musical until the eventual BD release. A live-action movie – if done right – could turn out very good, but anime/manga based live-action movies have a pretty uneven success rate. The Japanese versions tend to be better than the few Hollywood versions that have been made. Tiger & Bunny has taken a lot of inspiration from the American superhero comics and movies so a live-action adaptation feels fitting – although I may be pretty alone with my opinion.
Whether or not you like the idea of a live-action Tiger & Bunny, Ozaki has no plans for that at the moment and he is currently concentrating on the already announced movie projects. That hasn’t stopped the Japanese fans from making speculations about a dream cast for a Hollywood live-action adaptation: