Akira Live Action Movie Update Page

Rumours circulated a few years ago about an Akira project which was all set untill the budget was calculated to be in the region of $300.000, after which it was dumped. Chris Norrington was meant to direct so it was a damn good thing the project was scrapped. Well that is until today.

Warner Bros has now announced a new project, a two-movie live action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's six-volume Akira, the first of which will be fast-tracked for a 2009 release, Variety reports.

Each installment will encompass three volumes of the original work, which has already graced the silver screen in a 1988 Otomo-helmed animated motion picture. Short film and commercials vet Ruairi Robinson will make his feature directorial debut working from a script by Gary Whitta. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company 'Appian Way' will co-produce, while Otomo keeps an eye on proceedings from the executive producer's chair.

Warner Bros. has hired Ruairi Robinson to direct. Robinson's animated scifi comedy short Fifty Percent Grey was nominated for an Oscar. Robinson wants to make the film, which is set to be released in the summer of '09, as a two-parter, moving the action from "Neo Tokyo" to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by the Japanese.

Variety reports that the filmmakers pitched the flicks as “Blade Runner meets City of God,” which is a modestly fitting description for the 1988 film.

AICN reports that Joseph Gordon Levitt has been cast in the role Tetsuo, the motorcycle gang member who develops menacing psychokinetic powers. They also report as if Leonardo DiCaprio is definitely on board for the lead character of Kaneda.

There are as yet no more casting details available for the project.

Above: Leonardo DiCaprio (Kaneda); Joseph Gordon Levitt (Tetsuo); and John Edward (Lady Miyako)
- The leads in Akira, Manhattan style? Ok, I made the last one up.

My Thoughts

So my first thoughts on this project is that it could be Akira mainly in name alone with a basic similarity in story. Think hollywood Godzilla, which was basically just a big lizard movie with a purchased name to secure bums in seats. The story could be - Psychic powers develop, city destroyed, new power hirarchy evolves and the New Manhattan Empire is created, a bunch of kids in their late-late twenties do battle. The fat cats make a bunch of cash, we cry and another work of art is raped of all it's beauty. These were only my initial thoughts.

I think obviously the characters will have different names and ages because in the Manga/Anime they are both in their mid teens and Japanese. With that in mind, it's ironic that Dicaprio actually looks more like Tetsuo and Levitt more like Kaneda. As I've said for years, DiCaprio would make a good Tetsuo on looks alone but looks shouldn't be any factor when bringing this story to the big screen unless it was trying to stay true to the original, which this new live action film certainly isn't. I also said he would make a good Tetsuo when I was 15, that was 1995, he's aged a bit since then I would have thought.

I'm wondering how many Japanese people will be in this film. The film is probably going to be called Akira, that much could be true so it will need atleast one Japanese boy, or who knows. If Manhattan was rebuilt by the Japanese I would believe that, in this near future metropolis it would be a very mixed race kinda place, so their could be many Japanese people and the place could be very close to the neo Tokyo of the manga, think Blade Runner and Little Tokyo. I think It would only work if it was a very Japanese super city, overpopulated with a balanced ratio of Japanese and Americans. Basically, as good as Neo Tokyo, only in America. It would be great if it contained all the iconography one would expect from a Japanese metropolis, but mixed in with western visuals too for a balance of east meets west in the not too distant future.

I think if they tried mixing Japanese and Western visuals, iconography, and actors this could be a really cool thing which could work well. But this is hollywood we need to remember, too many foreign ellements could diswade the paying proleteriat so wouldn't be a good thing in their eyes, or maybe they've found a director with integrity? we should hope.

I can only hope that Hollywood hasn't made a new westernised twist in which Akira is actually a machine built by the Japanese under New Manhattan when it was being constructed which accidentally gets activated / discovered by Tetsuo (or whatever he will be called). Akira is either a Japanese boy or some kind of crappy hollywood plot twist, he can't be anything else.

Two things are allready ringing alarm bells for me - fast tracked to 2009 and first time director are not things I want to hear on a project as big as this one should be, what are they doing rushing it?. Well what ever they do with this story, it will only be as good as putting John Edward in the film as Lady Miyako, it's only a metaphore, but isn't that exactly what hollywood usually does? I'm such a cynic I know, it will probably be amazing. Hollywood!... think not.

J Sprint - 27-March-2008