It seems you can’t keep King of the Pirates forever. After being at the hit Netflix Live adaptation by the popular manganese and Anime series “A bit“Executive Producer and Co-Showrunner Matt Owens Was announced in an Instagram post on Friday March 21 that he would leave the series to deal with personal questions he is currently facing.
“The 6 years working on live action ‘one piece’ have been a life change. A dream come true. There has also been a lot,” Owens wrote in his post. “So I go off the long happy to take a break and focus on myself and my mental health.”
The development on the show began in 2017, with Netflix who bought on 2020 and took on Steven Maeda as Showrunner 2021. Owens served as the main author and executive producer on the project at that time, but given the title Co-Showrunner 2022 at the same time as casting was announced. The First Season dropped in August of 2023, but season 2 was delayed as a result of the wga and sag-aftra strikes and didn’t complete production until December 2024. Joe tracz joined owens as co-showrunner for season 2 after-mareda left Following Following Following Following Follow. The wga do have “one piece” listed as being in production for season 3, suggesting an oncoming renewal, thought it’s unclear whether owens leaving the show will increase these plans.
After thanking many who were involved in getting the show to happen, Owens said in his statement: “At the moment I will take a breath, do some therapy, try to rank in ‘Marvel -Rivals’ and come back updated for the new adventures that await.”
After the launch of the first season, Maeda spoke with IndieWire About the challenges of living such a beloved manga to life, but a guiding light for him, Owens, and the rest of the team caught the magic in how “a bit” made them feel.
“I knew there would be many expectations, especially from the fans that are very protective and rightly,” Maeda said. “They do not want their favorite manga not to be representative of the feelings they knew the first time they read it. I just wanted to keep all the fun and silly moments while they never gave feelings short screams. It was the No 1 goal: You want to be able to have both these things that are commy exist.”
“One Piece” follows Monkey D. Luffy when he collects a crew to seek a bowl that allows him to be king of the pirates. It plays Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as usop and Taz Skylar like Sanji. The first season of the show spent eight weeks in Netflix Global Top 10 and debuted on No. 1 in 46 countries.
Read Owen’s entire Instagram post below.
