‘Akira’ Live-Action Movie Gets Promising Update From Producer

Unbelievably, it has now been almost a quarter of a century since a live-action adaptation of the 1988 cult smash-hit Akira first entered development hell for a ridiculously long time. While we haven’t heard much about the highly anticipated anime adaptation, that’s all about to change, as Academy Award-nominated producer Andrew Lazar has now teased some promising, and imminent, news.

Ever since being announced back in 2002, the new take on Akira has been passed around to several filmmakers, with the most recent being Oscar winner and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi. Now, Lazar, who is best known for the likes of American Sniper and this month’s action movie G20, has revealed (via Johan Albrechtsen of Moovy TV) that, while he can’t say anything yet, he expects there will be some big news coming “in the next couple of months.”

“So, I think you can expect an update in the next couple of months.”

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Akira remains one of the most celebrated feats of animation of all time, and is one of the highest regarded examples of contemporary Japanese animation. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō, and written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, Akira is based on Otomo’s 1982 manga of the same name. This cyberpunk adventure takes place in the post-apocalyptic city of Neo-Tokyo where biker Kaneda is confronted by many anti-social elements while trying to help his friend Tetsuo, a teenage boy who is exposed to a mysterious energy source and develops telekinetic powers that place him at the center of a conflict that may destroy the world.

The movie has been a major influence on a lot of modern science fiction coming out of Hollywood, including the likes of The Matrix, Dark City, Chronicle, Looper, and Inception, and frankly, it’s wild that a live-action take on the material has not yet materialized. Of course, whether it should or not is open to debate.

Will the ‘Akira’ Live-Action Movie Ever Actually Happen?

Toho

The live-action take on Akira has been passed around to several filmmakers over the years, including Stephen Norrington, Jaume Collet-Serra, and Justin Lin, before eventually landing in the lap of Jojo Rabbit director Taika Waititi. Hollywood icon Leonardo DiCaprio is on board as producer, with Waititi, Michael Golamco, and Charles Yu penning the script. However, while things did seem to be moving forward, Waititi’s return to the MCU with Thor: Love and Thunder resulted in Akira being delayed once again.

Even after all these years, Waititi seems committed to making the movie happen, no matter how long it takes. Though it’s possible that, following the critical failure of Thor: Love and Thunder (now one of the MCU’s lowest rated movies), the studio may start looking elsewhere all over again. Despite his past declarations that he does not want to give up on his plans for Akira, Waititi has suggested that, while he plans to remain involved, it may not be him at the helm.

“I think eventually it will happen. I’m just not sure if I’ll be doing it,” the filmmaker said back in 2020. “The whole thing went on hold. We had to keep pushing the dates, and it encroached on the Thor dates, which were immovable. So Akira ended up shifting two years down the track.” Warner Bros. was once so confident in the project finally getting off the ground that they had scheduled Akira for release on May 21, 2021, with filming planned to start in California in July 2019. However, the adaptation has since been put on indefinite hold. Here’s hoping the update that’s coming in the next few months was worth waiting for!

Source: Moovy TV

Akira

Release Date

July 16, 1988

Runtime

124 Minutes

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