AKIRA Live-Action Movie Project is Alive and Well

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