Well, as a matter of fact, David Bowie was actually originally who I wanted to Ryuk—but then David Bowie died.
There were no guarantees that Bowie or Prince would have signed on for Death Note, and Wingard eventually settled on a great actor in Willem Dafoe, but this still represents a curious “what-if”.
And then the second person on my list was Prince, weirdly enough—and then he died.
Even in the casting of one of the film’s supernatural characters (with no discernible race), Wingard ran into some issues that were tragic and unforeseeable.