Akira

[GeneChing]

So much for that...

'Akira' Production Offices Shut Down As Warner Bros. Scrutinizes Budget (Exclusive)
UPDATED: The production offices in Vancouver are being closed, with below-the-line talent and crew told to stop working. “Everybody is being sent home,” according to an insider.
11:17 AM PST 1/5/2012 by Borys Kit

Warner Bros is pushing the pause button on Akira.

The project, which has been through several incarnations, is being shut down in the face of casting, script and budget issues. The production offices in Vancouver are being closed, with below-the-line talent and crew told to stop working. “Everybody is being sent home,” according to an insider.

Producers, who include Appian Way’s Jennifer Kiloran Davisson and Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar, will hunker down with director Jaume Collet-Serra for the next two weeks to iron out the script. It is unclear if Harry Potter scribe Steve Kloves, who did a pricey rewrite on the project a year ago, will be brought in to help out.

If the issues cannot be resolved, the project could end up being shelved entirely, say insiders.

Collet-Serra already had halved the budget from the incarnation that Albert Hughes was going to direct. He now is working on a budget in the $90 million range. But with only Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) signed on to star, and Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter in various stages of dealmaking, the studio feels that the price tag is still too high for a sci-fi project with that level of star wattage. The goal, says an insider, is to bring the budget down to between $60 million and $70 million. However, another source close to the production says the script, rather than the budget, has skidded the production. The project, this person says, will remain in the $90 million range.

An adaptation of the classic Japanese manga, Akira is an Americanized story set in a postapocalyptic New Manhattan, where a motorcycle gang leader (Hedlund) must stop his brother and fellow gang member from abusing his newly acquired telekinetic powers.

Akira already has “died” three times only to rise phoenix-like from the ashes. Ruairi Robinson and Hughes were previously deep into the project as directors before dropping off. Collet-Serra got the project green-lighted and has come the closest to going before cameras.

This isn't the only Warner Bros. project whose budget is being scrutinized. Arthur and Lancelot, the period fantasy being directed by David Dobkin, also has come under increased budget pressure.

Sources close to the project say Akira isn't dead yet. “It’s a very resilient movie,” says one insider. “Warner Bros. just won’t let it die.”

Warner Bros. declined comment.

Email: Borys.Kit@thr.com
Twitter: @Borys_Kit

...for now....

[GeneChing]

www.akira-project.com

[GeneChing]

Exclusive: Director Jaume Collet-Serra Dishes His Vision for Akira
Source: Max Evry
February 10, 2014



At the press junket for his latest Liam Neeson action vehicle Non-Stop--the second after Unknown and before next year's Run All Night--director Jaume Collet-Serra gave us the skinny on his much-buzzed-about remake of Akira for Warner Bros. In 2011 he was all set to helm the live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's beloved manga and cult 1988 anime, with Garrett Hedlund in the frame as biker gang leader Kaneda, before the studio decided $90 million was too big a gamble for an admittedly oddball project with subversive political undertones and heady sci-fi concepts galore.

A year after dropping out, Collet-Serra got back on the Akira bandwagon and is currently pursuing a more scaled-down version that will allow audiences a passport into Otomo's futuristic cyberpunk world while setting the stage for sequels. He talked to us exclusively in New York about his philosophical approach to the material, and even made some (no-doubt controversial) statements on the characters. He clearly respects the material, but is definitely not approaching this from a wholly reverent place…

ComingSoon.net: When you were working on "Akira"…

Collet-Serra: I'm still working on "Akira," so that's part of my life. (laughs)

CS: That's great that you're sticking with it despite the bumps in the road.

Collet-Serra: It's great that they're waiting for me. It's different, because you have to be respectful of the source material. Otomo adapted his own work from a manga into an anime and both things are completely different and genius. The only way to do a live version of "Akira" is to take the spirit and adapt it. It will be as different as the anime was from the manga.

CS: What worries myself and a lot of the other fans of the property is you have elements that are commercial and sexy, like the motorbikes or the jaw-dropping futuristic backdrop, but for the most part it's a very cerebral work. How do you maintain the essence of that without diluting it into essentially "Blade Runner: Mark 2"?

Collet-Serra: I think you cannot make a movie about "Akira" and hope that everyone understands it. Like everything else, you have to make three or four movies in one where there's the essence somewhere. If you're a fan, you already know what it's about and you'll see it's part of the same world, but trying to oversimplify it would be a mistake. I think if at some point a character tries to explain it to the audience at the end of the second act, that's a problem. It's more like an existential opera. It's something that can only be explained in the manga, and even in the anime it's hard to follow.

CS: And we all have that original anime, it's there, nothing can sully it, so if you were going to do it in live-action one would hope you would bring something new to the table. What is it you are bringing specifically that is going to make it yours?

Collet-Serra: I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don't think the main characters are the protagonists. What I'm hoping is to bring characters.

CS: That's true. It's one of those strange stories where you literally never see the main character that is the namesake of the film!

Collet-Serra: Nobody's interesting. Tetsuo's interesting because weird sh*t happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward.

CS: They're ciphers.

Collet-Serra: Yeah. So hopefully in my version that will be strong, and you'll have a story that happens in that world that will show you a little bit of the mystery. Then, if you're interested, they'll make "Akira 2 & 3" then you can get deeper into it. I love the world, a lot of people love that world, so why wouldn't we indulge in it a little bit and see how it would be if it was real? Like you say I don't have to explain everything, but wouldn't you like to spend two-hours in a world of "Akira" and follow a character and be like, "that's cool"? That's all I want to offer, is two-hours in a world you can actually feel. We're working on it.

Non-Stop opens in theaters on February 28. Look for our full interviews with Jaume Collet-Serra and producer Joel Silver soon!

I wouldn't say Japanese culture never has strong characters. Just look at samurai flicks. Maybe anime doesn't have strong characters...

[Jimbo]

That was an extremely stupid statement to say that Japanese never have strong characters, and that it's 'part of the culture'. How many Japanese movies has that doofus actually watched?

[GeneChing]

Over lunch, I was thinking of all the great characters in the other Akira's work, Akira Kurosawa - not just the complex ronin that Toshiro Mifune played, but also the great characters in Dersu Uzala, Dodes'ka-den, or Ikiru.

It doesn't instill a lot of faith in this Akira project.

It does give me the chance to drop my fav Sochi meme, which I've been wanting to do all week.

[GeneChing]

I only cut&pasted the Akira stuff. You'll have to follow the link if you want the Oblivion & Ender's Game stuff.

Concept Art Of WB's Defunct AKIRA Live-Action Remake, OBLIVION & ENDER'S GAME
Conceptual illustrator James Clyne ("Avatar"), has updated his website with artwork that he created for Oblivion, Ender's Game, and Warner Bros. never-produced live-action remake of Akira.
By nailbiter111 - 2/8/2014


In 2002, Warner Bros. acquired rights to make a live-action remake of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. Plans for it didn't start to really materialize until 2008. That is when Irish short film director Ruairi Robinson ("The Last Days on Mars") was brought on board to direct. At that time, the script was being written by Gary Whitta ("The Book of Eli"), and Leonardo DiCaprio would've been one of the producers. Of course things fell apart and the project would end up in two other directors hands (Albert Hughes and Jaume Collet-Serra) before WB finally pulled the plug on it in 2012. Below, you will find several pieces of concept art that conceptual illustrator James Clyne created for Robinson's version of Akira. You'll also find some artwork that Clyne created for Tom Cruise's Oblivion and Gavin Hood's Ender's Game.

AKIRA Concept Art By James Clyne

[@PLUGO]

[GeneChing]

June 08, 2015 4:21pm PT by Borys Kit
'Daredevil' Showrunner to Write 'Akira' Adaptation for Warner Bros. (Exclusive)


Courtesy of Kodansha Comics
Marco J. Ramirez, the 'Sons of Anarchy' scribe who will oversee the second season of 'Daredevil,' will adapt the manga classic.

Warner Bros. is revving up the engines again for Akira.

Marco J. Ramirez, the scribe who will be co-showrunning the second season of Netflix’s Daredevil, will write Akira, the Warner Bros. long-in-the-works adaptation of the Japanese manga classic.

Andrew Lazar (American Sniper) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s shingle Appian Way are producing the adaptation, which has faced plenty of ups and downs since Warners acquired the rights to the manga in 2008. While numerous writers, directors and stars darted to and from the project, the closest it came to getting made was in 2012 when Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter were in various stages of dealmaking.

Jaume Collet-Serra was to direct when the plug was pulled and the Vancouver facilities closed due to casting, script and budget issues.

The original manga, which ran throughout the 1980s, was set in a post-nuclear apocalypse of Neo-Tokyo and told of two brothers, both in biker gangs, who find themselves pitted against each other when one begins abusing his newly acquired telekinetic powers.

Ramirez, repped by UTA, cut his teeth on shows such as Sons of Anarchy and Da Vinci’s Demons (on which he also was producer) before writing episodes for Daredevil’s first season. From there, he graduated to run the second season with Doug Petrie, taking over from Steven DeKnight.

Drew Crevello and Nik Mavinkurve are overseeing Akira for Warners.

I bet they could find a good role for Emma Stone in this.

[GeneChing]

Okay now this Hollywood remake would totally work for me.

[GeneChing]

Christopher Nolan Finds Himself At the Center of the Biggest Akira Movie Rumor Yet
Germain Lussier
Filed to: Akira 9/14/15 5:30pm



Warner Bros. has been trying to make a live-action Akira movie for as long as we can remember. Multiple filmmakers, actors, and writers have unsuccessfully tried to adapt the graphic novel turned iconic animated film for Hollywood. Now comes the biggest Akira rumor yet.

This new rumor says the studio is trying to restart the scifi epic in a bigger way than ever and they may be bringing one of their big guns on to help. Den of Geek reports the studio wants to make not one, but three Akira movies and they asked none other than Christopher Nolan to talk to an unnamed director previously attached to the project about them.

So, of course, based on that sliver of information, the “Telephone” nature of the Internet would have you believe Nolan is directing a trilogy of movies or something like that. No. The news is he may have had a meeting with someone who once worked on the project. What they discussed there or if the meeting happened, we don’t know.

What we do know is Warner Bros. has dated a mystery Christopher Nolan movie for release summer of 2017. That’s a fact. So if Akira is back on the table, he’s almost certainly not directing. Could he be producing? Advising? Maybe. It’s hypothetically plausible. The dystopian themes in Akira, as well as the futuristic world and technology, all feel like things that would interest Nolan. And if he was attached, the studio might feel more comfortable developing the project as a trilogy instead of single film.



Then again Akira has already worked - masterfully - as a single film. Is there really a need for three? Is the studio concerned about doing a trilogy to be more faithful to the original comics? Or are they trying to stretch one arguably recognizable brand name into three films? Or is the rumor incorrect? We don’t know.

Nevertheless, Christopher Nolan spending any significant time on a trilogy that he’s not writing or directing seems a little out there. Unless of course, he is and we have our minds blown in a few months when it’s announced his 2017 movie is actually Akira. That seems highly doubtful, but crazier things have happened. Or have they?

[Den of Geek]

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

They need to recast Akira as a white female. ScarJo could do it.

[Jimbo]

They need to recast Akira as a white female. ScarJo could do it.

Or Emma Stone, since she already played a "part Asian".

[GeneChing]

Another day, another Akira rumor.

Justin Lin In Talks To Direct ‘Akira’ Live-Action Adaptation — Report
Lin's latest film "Star Trek Beyond" will hit theaters on July 22nd.

Vikram Murthi 5 hours ago @@fauxbeatpoet


“Akira”
Toho

Justin Lin’s latest film “Star Trek Beyond,” the third film in the “Star Trek” reboot franchise, will hit theaters in just a few short weeks, but the acclaimed action director is already in talks for a couple future projects. Along with his “Space Jam” sequel starring LeBron James, Slash Film reports that Warner Bros. is talking to Lin about helming a live-action adaptation of the iconic cyberpunk manga, and later anime film, “Akira.” Though the film has been in development hell for years now, with various directors and actors attached to the project, but Lin might finally be the guy for the job.

Set in a dystopian version of Tokyo called Neo-Tokyo, “Akira” follows two teenage bikers Tetsuo and Kaneda as their lives radically change after dormant psychic abilities suddenly awaken in Tetsuo. Fearing another psychic explosion that leveled Tokyo years prior, a shadowy government agency targets Tetsuo to prevent another catastrophe, all the while fearing the monstrous power of the mysterious Akira.

Justin Lin first broke through with his 2002 film “Better Luck Tomorrow,” about a group of Asian Americans who fall into the world of petty crime and mayhem. He then went on to direct three films in the “Fast and Furious” series as well as three episodes of Dan Harmon’s sitcom “Community,” including the famous paintball episode of the series. He also directed the first two episodes of the second season of “True Detective.”

“Star Trek Beyond” will hit theaters on July 22nd

[GeneChing]

Taika Waititi Talks Potentially Directing Akira, Casting Asians
Max Evry
October 11, 2017

Last month, it was revealed that Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is in negotiations with Warner Bros. to direct Akira, the live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime. Now Waititi has spoken to IGN about potentially directing the film, what his approach would be, and casting Asians.

“I am — that was more or less a rumor,” said Waititi coyly about the possibility. “There was, I mean, I was in talks to do that, for sure, and something that I was very passionate about — am passionate about. I actually love the books. Love the movie, but I would not do a remake of the movie. I would do an adaptation of the books. And, yeah, so anyway there’s been some chats [about him directing it].”

He also confirmed that he would not whitewash or Americanize the cast, preferring to cast Asian actors in the roles of Kaneda, Tetsuo, et al.

“Yeah, actually Asian teenagers would be the way to do it for me and probably no, not, like no name, I mean sort of unfound, untapped talent,” Waititi confirmed. “Yeah, I’d probably want to take it a bit back more towards the books.”

Akira consists of six volumes and there are reportedly gong to be two films, each based on three volumes. There was a Japanese animated film based on Akira back in 1988, directed by Otomo.

The movie adaptation has carried this synopsis for years: Set in a future city environment called New Manhattan, the sci-fi epic follows the leader of a bike gang who must save his best friend, who has been experimented on by the government causing him to develop dangerous and destructive psychokinetic powers.

Andrew Lazar (American Sniper) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way are producing the film, for which the studio acquired the rights back in 2008. It’s had plenty of talent attached before. The closest it came to being made was in 2012, when Jaume Collet-Serra was to direct Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter.

In addition to the upcoming Thor: Ragnorok, Waititi is set to direct the upcoming WWII film Jojo Rabbit, which he also wrote. He’s also known for his work on the films What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

I enjoyed Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

[GeneChing]

Now I'm really invested in this.

Leonardo DiCaprio Produced ‘Akira’ Scores In Latest CA Tax Credits Allocation
by Dominic Patten
April 2, 2019 6:13am


Shutterstock

The name Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be a little bit golden when it comes to the Golden State and tax incentives for film and television.

The Oscar winner saw the Quentin Tarantino directed Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, in which DiCaprio co-stars with Brad Pitt, awarded over $18 million from California’s $330 million annual incentives program in 2017. Now DiCaprio’s Appian Way shingle has been allocated $18.5 million for a live action version of Akira from Warner Bros.

Having gestated for a number of years, The Departed star produced adaptation of anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s 6-volume classic graphic novel was among 18 feature films that were unveiled today as successful recipients of the last round of allocations from the state and the California Film Commission.

With a duo of big bucks projects from Paramount, plus Cry, Baby and more in there, check out the full list and allocation awards of the 10 studios flicks and eight indies below:



“We are thrilled with the opportunity to shoot Akira in California,” said Ravi Mehta, Warner Bros. Pictures EVP of physical production and finance on Tuesday of the film and the tax credits it has been awarded. “The availability of top-notch crew members, plus the wide variety of location choices and predictable weather are second to none,” the exec added of the upcoming project.

Eager to display that the 13th big budget film to receive tax credits since the program was expanded back in 2014 is a good financial bet, the CFC reckons Akira will create a total of $92 million in spending in Cali during production – which is serious cash all round.

In full, the math for this latest round of awards for the 18 films is estimated to generate about $408 million in what the CFC call “qualified expenditures.”

Set to film entirely in the Golden State, the also Andrew Lazar produced Akira itself is estimated to generate $43 million in wages to 200 below-the line crew members and more than 5,000 extras during its 71 days of filming. Having seen his name floated around in the past in connection to the project, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is still on-board to helm Akira, I hear.

BTW, though that $18.5 million that Akira has been allocated is a pretty nice chunk of change from the state, it is not actually the most that California has handed out to a pic since the tax incentives program started accepting applications from tentpole projects five years ago. So far, the two spots belong to the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee and the LeBron James starring Space Jam 2 with $22.4 million and $21.8 million in credits respectively.

Of course, that could change after the next round of big screen applications are digitally submitted from June 17-21 this year. In terms of the small screen, the next application period for TV projects is May 20-24, with the allocations expected to be announced some time in late June or early July.

[GeneChing]

Taika Waititi to Direct 'Thor 4' (Exclusive)
JULY 16, 2019 10:37AM by Borys Kit


Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

Meanwhile, development concerns force Warners to push back 'Akira.'

Taika Waititi is returning to the many worlds of Thor.

Waititi has inked a deal to write and direct a follow-up to his 2017 smash, Thor: Ragnarok.

But his boarding of what would be a fourth installment of the Marvel franchise comes at a cost: Warner Bros.' long-gestating adaptation of Japanese manga Akira.

That project, which was penciled for a May 21, 2021, release and had Waititi testing actors in a worldwide search for talent, is being put on pause indefinitely as the two projects' production dates began to bump up against one another. Script development concerns caused Akira to push back its shooting start, and while some of those have been addressed, say sources, the dates were now too close for comfort.

Warners' next step for Akira is unclear. Several sources have said that Warners is keen on keeping Waititi involved for the long term and hopes to see him pick up Akira after Thor 4.

Waititi brought his own stamp to the Thor franchise with Ragnarok, infusing the movie with an idiosyncratic wit evident in his previous work like What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Audiences responded to the tune of almost $854 million worldwide while critics’ raves put the movie at 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The move also rejuvenated what had been a rare declining franchise performer for Marvel.

Chris Hemsworth is expected to reprise his career-defining role as the Asgardian god of thunder.

Next up for Waititi is Jojo Rabbit, a unique Nazi-era satire he directed for Fox Searchlight, which opens Oct. 18. Scarlett Johansson stars in the picture alongside Waititi, who portrays a boy's imaginary version of Adolf Hitler.

He is repped by CAA and Manage-ment.

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