Your Name remake gets its third new director in three years

Your Name, the live-action remake of the 2016 modern anime classic, has found a new director. Carlos Lopez Estrada, who can count Blindspotting and Raya and the Last Dragon among his previous works, is set to helm the project as well as help write the script as per Variety.

Estrada’s arrival marks the J.J. Abrams-produced project’s third director in just over three years. Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb was originally brought in to helm the adaptation in 2019. Lee Isaac Chung was later named director in 2020.

According to Collider at the time, the movie was set to Westernise the premise of a teenage boy and girl swapping bodies amid the backdrop of a natural disaster. While it’s unclear if Estrada will be working to the same brief, it was all set to follow "a young Native American woman living in a rural area and a young man from Chicago who discover they are magically and intermittently swapping bodies. When a disaster threatens to upend their lives, they must journey to meet and save their worlds."

The original movie, directed by Makoto Shinkai, proved to be one of anime’s biggest success stories in recent years, grossing $380 million worldwide. It also helped kickstart an anime boom at the box office, with Jujutsu Kaisen 0, Demon Slayer Mugen Train, and Shinkai’s follow-up project Weathering With You grossing a combined $900 million.

J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is also working on a new Superman movie, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. For more on what’s over the horizon, check out our guide to movie release dates.