It was a year ago when it was officially announced that Warner Brothers and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way were developing a live-action version of the anime "Akira" with first-time Irish director Ruairi Robinson. So now its been 15 months and we haven't heard much - but that's because its been struggling internally at the studio. Bloody Disgusting now confirms via "two separate sources" that the project is "dead as a doornail." Robinson is apparently also off of the project.
"Akira" originated in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story was set in a neon-lit futuristic post-nuclear war "New Tokyo" in 2019 where a teen biker gang member is subjected to a government experiment which unleashes his latent powers. The gang's leader must find a way to stop the ensuing swathe of destruction.
With its mature themes and cutting-edge animation, "Akira" was a milestone movie in anime and even animation circles, and led the way for anime making inroads into Western pop culture in the 1990s.
The new story was to move the action to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by Japanese money and was to hit theaters THIS summer. Guess that didn't happen...
Maybe this project will sit for a few years until it is picked up again and made into an awesome movie. Heck, it took 10 years for the first "Batman" movie to get made. Let's just wait a while.
More news to come! Catch ya' later!
Sources: BD, First Showing
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