One Piece, the beloved manga series created by Eiichiro Oda, is set to receive a live-action adaptation on Netflix in August 2023. Tomorrow Studios is producing the series, which was first announced in January 2020 (they are the same production team behind the now-canceled Cowboy Bebop adaptation on Netflix).
One Piece is one of the most beloved and widely known manga series. Since its debut on July 22, 1997, in Weekly Shonen Jump, 969 manga chapters have been published, along with 95 volumes, which continue to grow. One Piece is also recognized as the all-time best-selling manga, surpassing other manga such as Dragon Ball, Golgo 13, and Naruto, with over 462 million copies sold, according to Whats on Netflix as reported by PikiranRakyat-our site.com.
As a result, One Piece is one of the most successful fiction franchises of all time, generating over $21 billion in revenue from various manga, films, video games, and assorted merchandise.
At Netflix TUDUM, Netflix confirmed earlier that season 1 of One Piece will be globally released on Netflix on August 31, 2023, along with the first trailer. Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, and Taz Skylar as Sanji will star in the show, which will debut in Brazil.
The story of One Piece takes place in an alternative version of Earth and is set during the middle of the “Golden Age of Pirates.” Brutal pirates rule the seas, and only the strongest have a chance of claiming the mythical treasure trove known as the “One Piece” left behind by the greatest pirate of all time, Gol D. Roger.
Years after Gol D. Roger’s death, a boy named Monkey D. Luffy dreams of raising his own crew, finding the One Piece, and declaring himself the next Pirate King. After eating a devil fruit that grants Luffy the power to make his body like rubber, it gives him incredible strength and agility. When Luffy finally becomes an adult, he sets sail from Foosha Village in East Blue and embarks on his great adventure to become the next Pirate King.
Tomorrow Studios is the main production company behind this series, and its important projects include Prime Video’s Hanna and TNT’s Snowpiercer. Of course, this production company is also preparing Cowboy Bebop for Netflix. This brings us to the showrunner for this series.
Steven Maeda will be the showrunner for the live-action One Piece. His long career has involved him in various titles such as The X-Files, Lost, Lie to Me, Helix, and Day Break. Meanwhile, Marc Jobst is expected to direct the first episode of One Piece. He has also directed several episodes of Daredevil, The Punisher, and The Witcher on Netflix.
If not for the global pandemic, we would likely have only seen its production started in the summer of 2020. Since then, the production team has experienced several delays and misjudgments of starting dates. Most of the filming took place at the Cape Town Film Studios, which has enough space for pirate ships, and, according to someone familiar with the production, they have built three pirate ships for the show so far.
According to Steven Maeda, they originally planned to begin production in 2021. “Basically we’ve written 10 scripts. We’re going to start casting when we get back. My guess is June 1, but we’ll start casting. We have a lot of names we’re talking about, and we’ll start producing in September [2021]. We’ve been working very closely with Sensei Oda. So, we’re about to go; this is huge. I mean, Snowpiercer was a big production; this is even bigger,” he remarked.
However, these plans were seemingly delayed as we began to see fans spotting the ongoing production between February and March 2021. On September 3, 2021, Netflix officially launched the script for the first episode. The script was written by Matt Owens and Steven Maeda and was titled “Romance Dawn.”
In September 2021, reports surfaced that the crew was gearing up to start filming. Later, in early October 2021, Steven Maeda posted that he had arrived in Cape Town (the shooting location for the series). Filming finally began in February 2022, with an original release date of July 10, 2022, according to some production lists.
The series used the codename Project Panda during the production period and was also referred to as Project Roger. During the first month of production, the President of South Africa released a press statement about the show, saying that One Piece is Netflix’s biggest project in Africa.
In conclusion, fans of One Piece can look forward to the upcoming live-action adaptation on Netflix, with a host of talented actors and a production team dedicated to bringing this beloved series to life.
