the film series Death Note was announced on 29 May 2007. It was announced that the shooting of this film took place in the summer of 2007. A trailer was also posted to the film's official website. Director Hideo Nakata told The Daily Yomiuri that he wanted to reveal L's "human side," which had not been explored in the Death Note series. The theme song of the film is "I'll Be Waiting" by Lenny Kravitz. Release L: Change the World was first released in the Japanese box office on 9 February 2008. It was screened on 398 cinema screens throughout Japan on its opening day. On the same day, this film was also released in Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand. It was subsequently released in Singapore on 21 February 2008, and in the United Kingdom on 29 December 2008. L: Change the World had a limited two-day screening in the United States. Two versions, a subtitled version with Japanese audio and an English-dubbed version, were shown on 29 and 30 April 2009 respectively. The latter version had the same voice actors doing the voice-over as the other English-dubbed versions of Death Note. This film was released in the US by publisher Viz Media. The film was released on DVD in the United States on 18 August 2009. Reception Box office L: Change the World was the highest-grossing film at the Japanese box office during its debut weekend. It grossed a total of and had 677,000 admissions during the first three days. It also set the record for the highest grossing and most watched film over a two-day period. As of 5 March 2008, a total of 2,200,000 people went to watch the film, and the film grossed a total of around . L: Change the World is the 10th highest-grossing film of 2008 in Japan. According to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, this film earned a total of () at the Japanese box office in the year 2008. Overseas, the film grossed $6,003,340, bringing its worldwide total to . Critical reception Rodney Perkins from Twitch criticized the film, saying that "it was somewhat difficult to see the appeal of L: Change the World to anyone beyond young people, and hardcore fans of the original films and the manga upon which it is based.". He also added that L's "idiosyncrasies seem more distracting than anything else", although he