Matt Owens, the principle inventive drive behind Netflix’s One Piece, is leaving the live-action collection, which wrapped manufacturing on Season 2 final month.
“The final six years engaged on the live-action One Piece have been a life-changing journey. A dream come true. It’s additionally been A LOT,” Owens wrote on Instagram. So I’m stepping off the Going Merry to take a break and deal with myself and my psychological well being.
Owens has served as govt producer and co-showrunner on each Seasons 1 and a couple of and has formed the inventive imaginative and prescient for the acclaimed live-action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s beloved manga, together with its long-term plan for future seasons. Joe Tracz, who joined in Season 2 as govt producer/co-showrunner, stays on the collection and can shepherd the upcoming second season by means of post-production. Owens’ departure, which is efficient instantly, shouldn’t be anticipated to affect the present’s Season 3 renewal prospects.
The explanations for Owens’ exit are poignant given how the One Piece manga helped him by means of some darkish instances a long time in the past.
“There was a time period in my early 20s, I had only in the near past moved to Los Angeles; I used to be engaged on attempting to get into the movie and tv enterprise, and I used to be actually depressed right now,” he instructed Deadline in 2023. “I simply wished to go to work and go dwelling and probably not cope with folks or be social or something like that. So I believed, nicely, now’s a good time to attempt to get into One Piece as a result of there are tons of and tons of of episodes and I’m not doing anything.
“I discovered it at a very darkish and low level in my life however I additionally attribute it with serving to me get out of it as a result of One Piece is such a beautiful, optimistic, inspirational collection,” Owens continued. “That’s what actually galvanized me to, as soon as I heard that somebody was attempting to make a live-action, to attempt to get entangled as a result of I owe this collection lots.”
An formidable endeavor, One Piece combines prolonged, grueling shoots in South Africa and complicated, visible effect-heavy post-production.
Season 1 of the motion journey spent 8 weeks in Netflix’s World High 10, reaching the High 10 in 93 nations and debuting at #1 in 46. It additionally logged a 95% Viewers Rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 10,000+ rankings, among the many highest ever for a Netflix collection.
One Piece, about Monkey D. Luffy who assembles a crew as he units out to seek out the legendary fabled treasure, One Piece, and develop into King of the Pirates, stars Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero as Usopp, and Taz Skylar as Sanji.
The collection is finished in partnership with Shueisha and produced by Tomorrow Studios, an ITV Studios associate, and Netflix. Season 2 govt producers embody showrunners Matt Owens & Joe Tracz, Oda, Marty Adelstein and Becky Clements by means of Tomorrow Studios, Tetsu Fujimura, Chris Symes and Season 1 co-showrunner Steven Maeda.
