AKIRA Live-Action Movie Project is Alive and Well
Comments(9)
- By Venkman
Last we heard the live-action film production of Akira that was being developed by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company was dead. Today it looks like it is alive and moving forward with script development. While at Comic-Con Jonah Hex producer Andrew Lazar gave an interview in which he say’s this about the Akira film:
We are working on the script. It is a real priority project for Warner Bros. and so [the writers] are working on a draft.
Personally I am really excited that the project is not dead! I know there is a chance the movie will suck, and piss a lot of people off, but I can’t help but be interested to see how they bring this story to life in a live action world. Then there is the the possibility that it will be freakin awesome! As for when it will go into production:
Sometimes movies need an enormous amount of prep, like this one. It is not realistic to go before the third quarter of next year for a 2011 release.
At least they’re not rushing it through, it looks like they are taking the time to try and do it right. Lazar then gives a very general answer when asked about a director.
So many interesting choices, in truth, it is such an amazing property that we’ve seen a lot of interest from a variety of people. Once we get the final script, we’ll see what our final options are. It is a very important decision and we don’t want to jump into it lightly.
Everyone involved with Akira is excited to do it, and motivated to do the film right. This is a film you really don’t want to piss off the fans on. As excited as I am to see this get made, I will be pretty upset if they screw it up.
I’ve always been a very inclusive producer of underlying rights, and am very anxious to collaborate with Ôtomo and listen to his thoughts.
See, now that’s encouraging. So with Akira gearing up for production sometime in the future what do you think?
Source: ifmagazine
man i hope they dont change the setting to New York. that would be the perfect example of hollywood stupidity. hey guess what, America is not the centre of the world. it would be cool if they subtitled it too, but i dont see that happening.
Exactly Push was set in Hong Kong… a movie set in Japan that just happens to feature hollywood stars would be amazing especially with the source material being looked at the way it's been
But if it is going to be set in Japan ( and I don't think it should be set anywhere else ), the actors have to be Japanese. It would also be cool if it was in Japanese. Everybody wants to Americanize foreign films just so it can fit our lifestyles; shouldn't we be open enough to experience other cultures and learn somethings we yet don't know. That's one of the great things about Akira ( and other Anime ) we get to experience another culture through film.
I'm not saying that all the characters should be played by americans. I'm just saying that in a 2030 post apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo that there may be some children of multiple descents living in Tokyo. As much as I loved the anime (even though the manga is ten times better) I just have this feeling that the characters will not be limited to Japanese actors, and it wouldn't bother me if that ends up being the case if it's good.
Face it. It will star Toby McGuire or some such actor nobody wants to see in this film and will be set in New York. The bikes will be changed to Harleys and when the gang goes out for a drink it will be Pepsi or Coke… whoever pays more.
You do have good point, I agree.
It would be a mistake to have americans play the characters, the Japanese give a very emotinol aspaect to there acting, even in voice acting. americans cant mimick that.
Some details from Gary Whitta's treatment have been leaked, and it sounds like they're keeping with that general tone.
It's planned to be a duology, adapted from the original six-volume manga instead of the anime (which was based mainly on volumes 1, 2, and 6). The plot seems mostly unchanged, other than being updated to deal with some more modern issues. For example, a private military company has been brought into the mix alongside the rebels and the government military, which seems to be based loosely on the American soldiers that are introduced later in the manga.
The shift to Manhatten has little effect on the plot. The manga actually has a fairly international presence (various governments showing up after Tokyo is destroyed by Akira, including American soldiers that team up with the Colonel, and scientists from all over the world). The story could be set in any city coming back from the brink of war, it's a post apocalyptic tale and Neo Tokyo isn't very different from any other cyberpunk city.
More importantly, the Manhatten in Whitta's treatment is actually now "Neo Tokyo", having been acquired by the growing superpower of Japan following its destruction in the war, in order to reconstruct it and use it as a way to deal with their growing population. As a result, the cast for the English version will be a mixture of Japanese and American characters.
Japanese acting isn't any better than American acting, and is often worse. Also, believe it or not, there are tons of terrible Japanese voice actors, and even many of the popular ones are hacks. It's easy to think the acting is good when you have no idea what they're actually saying or which words they're putting their emphasis and emotion into.