Children Of Men And Iron Man Writers Plotting Live Action Akira

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.

However, sources are now pushing the news that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, lately of the excellent Children of Men and Iron Man are seriously at work on the project. Akira is a high concept sci-fi set in a super future new Tokyo, years after a nuke obliterated the old one. A small group of  bikers must defend the city against a fellow biker whose psychic powers are awakened. Apparently the new script moves all this to Manhattan. Leave it in Tokyo I say. There’s no better place for a Science Fiction movie than Tokyo.

I haven’t seen Akira, but I’m about to. Don’t hate me. I’m told that it resembles Watchmen in that it’s deep and requires lots of character development and backstory. Watchmen was a failure but I still loved it. Zack Snyder went for it. Didn’t get all of the pitch but he sure tried. Make Akira with the same passion and it’ll all work out fine. Thanks Empire for the news.