After a few failed attempts, Warner Bros. is finally ready to take another
shot at adapting Katsuhiro Otomo's popular Akira manga into a live-action
feature film, and for that, the studio has hired Marvel's Daredevil co-writer
and co-showrunner Marco J. Ramirez to pen a new screenplay.
The project has been stuck in development for a number of years. In 2011
director Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, Unknown) came onboard to work on
bringing Otomo's post-nuclear world to the big screen, but the studio halted the
project during pre-production because of concerns with the script. This version
of the project included Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Gary Oldman, Helena
Bonham Carter, and Toby Kebbell, all in different stages of negotiations.
Kebbell, a fan of the original manga and subsequent anime, bailed out after spotting
some problems with the conception of the adaptation, problems that the studio
didn't seem keen on altering.
In 2013 Serra returned to work on a smaller budget version of the adaptation, but that too
was shut down by the studio, who had problems with casting, script, and yes
budget.
Welcome to Neo-Tokyo, built on the ashes of a Tokyo
annihilated by a blast of unknown origin that triggered World War III. The
lives of two streetwise teenage friends, Tetsuo and Kaneda, change forever when
paranormal abilities begin to waken in Tetsuo, making him a target for a
shadowy agency that will stop at nothing to prevent another catastrophe like
the one that leveled Tokyo. At the core of the agency’s motivation is a raw,
all-consuming fear of an unthinkable, monstrous power known only as Akira.
I honestly don't envy Ramirez, who besides having to do the obligatory and shameful westernization of the iconic manga, will also have to deal with the studio's apparent uncertainty about the project.
Source - THR
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