'Naruto' news: Live-action movie, play and sequel in the works

(Naruto Stage)Promotional photo of Koudai Matsuoka as Naruto Uzumaki for the "Naruto" play titled "Live Spectacle Naruto: The Akatsuki Investigation"

"Naruto" fans have something to look forward to, because the manga and anime series will be continued in a sequel and produced into a live-action movie and a play.

Announced in December on Twitter by Shonen Jump, which publishes the "Naruto" manga, the live-action movie will be adapted by Lionsgate, a major Hollywood production movie, with Michael Gracey as the director. In another Tweet, the manga publisher also said that they are "excited" about the movie, which is currently under pre-production. No news as of yet has been released about the cast, or when the movie will be aired.

Meanwhile, photos of the actors dressed up as the characters they are playing for the new "Naruto" play were posted on the performance's official website on Feb. 21. Titled "Live Spectacle Naruto: The Akatsuki Investigation," it will cover the storyline featured in the manga's 27th volume onwards, which was where the first play, which started being shown in 2015, also left off.

The main cast of the first play, which includes Koudai Matsuoka (Naruto Uzumaki), Yui Ito (Sakura Haruno) and Ryuuji Sato (Sasuke Uchiha) will be returning, although new actors are now included in the cast.

The play will run from May 19–24 in Tokyo and Osaka in June 16–22. No word has been said about the play being shown outside Japan, although the first play was performed in Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and China between 2015 and 2016.

Meanwhile, the first episode of "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations" anime is set to air by April 2017. The series features the children of the first anime and manga series. At the lead are Boruto Uzamaki, son of Naruto Uzamaki and Hinata Hyuga, Sarada Uchiha, the daughter of Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. Also featured is Mitsuki, who is the offspring of Orochimaru.

Anime News Network quoted "Naruto" creator Masashi Kishimoto, who said, "I plan to make it even better than Naruto."

The manga series of "Boruto: The Next Generation" started on May 9, 2016.

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