Oh, Akira, will we ever see you on the big-screen? I honestly don’t know, because this has the makings of a very expensive live-action movie. Expensive, expansive, and complex as hell to translate to an audience that have grown up on “Two and a Half Men”.
Akira lives! Again! Ahem. According to NYMag’s Vulture blog, the brothers Hughes (that would be Allen and Albert, FYI) are currently in negotiations with Warner Bros. to helm the studio’s sure-to-be expensive and epic live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s seminal manga/anime “Akira”, which recently got a major boost when Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way came onboard as producers. The Hughes brothers, of course, recently turned in the post-apocalyptic “Book of Eli” for the studio, so they’re no stranger to apocalyptic action.
A live action “Akira” movie has been floating around in the hopes of studio execs for some time now with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company putting it together for Warner. It was originally supposedly fast tracked for a big budget release this summer. Since we just said goodbye to summer I’m thinking there was a hitch.
Yes, according to the guys over at horror site Bloody-Disgusting (yeah, I don’t know what a horror site is doing reporting on a sci-fi movie, too, but I digress), who were actually the first one to break the story of the movie’s development, originally under the direction of producer Leonardo DiCaprio, over a year and a half again. Now according to BD, the live-action adaptation of the popular manga/anime is “dead as a doornail”, which is pretty damn dead.
I await the Leonardo DiCaprio-produced live-action version of “Akira” with equal bated breath and horror. A part of me is dying to see the anime (I’ve never read the manga) be translated into live-action, with living, breathing people and millions of Hollywood dollars thrown at the screen. Then again, another part of me is terrified of what a “Hollywood version” of “Akira” will look like. Well someone’s finally read a script for the live-action “Akira”, and his judgment seems to be a little mixed: it gives me comfort that the reviewer says the script is very faithful to the original source material, but he also goes to great lengths to mention that there’s nothing new here, no addition to the material. Is that good or bad? You decide.
Earlier this year, the Akira movie was moving at a pretty fast clip. Warner Bros. had snapped up the movie rights for Leonardo DiCaprio’s company to produce (and the Titanic star to possibly star), and word soon after was that the suddenly in demand Joseph Gordon Levitt had nabbed the co-starring (and some would say, leading) role of Testuo in the live-action version of the popular manga/anime. And then … nothing. It’s been nearly seven months since we last heard anything about the Akira movie … until now.
He is … Tetsuoooooo!!! Yesterday it was announced that Warner, working with Leonardo Dicaprio’s production company, would not just be making a live-action “Akira” movie, but they would be splitting it up into two films. (Which makes sense, actually, as one movie is just not enough to condense all the material of the original manga.) We also heard that Dicaprio may star in the film as Kaneda. So what about Testuo? How about Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
I am … Tetsuoooooooooooo!!!! You hear that? That’s the sound of Variety confirming a rumor that has been on the net for months and months now — a live-action “Akira” movie, based on the graphic novels by Katsuhiro Otomo, who later directed the 1988 animated movie — is true: Warner Bros. isn’t just making a live-action “Akira” movie, they’re making two!
