Viz Pictures is teaming up with National Cinemedia to present a special two-night multi-city debut at over 300 theaters across the U.S. for the live action Death Note film.  The showings will be held on May 20th and 21st at 7:30 pm.  A complete list of the theaters showing the film is available at the FathomEvents Website.  Subscribers to Shonen Jump can reserve tickets via the Shonen Jump Website from April 18 to 20th.  Advance ticket sales for the general public will begin on April 21st.

The special two-night event includes a special 20-minute feature on how the Death Note manga was adapted into a live action movie as well as the first ever interview with director Shusuke Kaneko.  The live action Death Note movie is a superlative version of the high concept Death Note saga that greatly benefits from its charismatic young stars and from a superbly “animated” performance from Ryuk, the sardonic shinigami who drops his notebook and starts the entire plot in motion.

The original Death Note manga, which was written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata (recently nominated for a “Best Penciller” Eisner, see “2008 Eisner Awards Share the Wealth”), has been gaining in popularity here in North America—it was rated as the #2 manga property on the most recent ICv2 “Top 50 Manga Properties List.” The Death Note anime, which like the Death Note manga is distributed here by Viz Media, is currently airing on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.