Akira Movie In Doubt As Warner Bros. Shuts Down Its Production Office

[Brendon Connelly]

All of the staff working on Warner Bros. long-boiling, deeply troubled adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's sprawling manga series Akira have been sent home and the production's Vancouver offices have gone 'lights out'.

There seem to be two main problems. Firstly, the budget needs to be brought down. Secondly, the script needs to be made more appealing to actors, because they studio is having trouble getting talent to sign. Only Garret Hedlund has been confirmed as a paid-up part of the cast, I believe, and you just can't hang a movie on that kid.

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

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.

Iron out? I wonder if 'steam roller' would be a more appropriate notion?

Steve Kloves, most famous for adapting (all but one of) the Harry Potter novels, recently did a big overhaul on the screenplay, but it doesn't seem to have been enough. There's some speculation that he might be called in to help with this eleventh hour reworking, but I suspect that may seem like throwing good money after bad and Warners won't stump for him to come back. I certainly wouldn't, not at this stage.

I think it's obvious that there are a lot of doubts about this project. The casting attempts weren't really meeting much favour amongst the core fanbase and the relocation of the project from Tokyo to Manhattan - sorry, Neo Tokyo to Neo Manhattan - has sparked its fair share of criticism too.

Maybe Akira will come back from the dead again, but I'm almost hopeful it won't. We don't need this film, not now, not from these creatives, not under these circumstances. There's been barely a trace of anybody treating this like a piece of entertainment, let alone art - all we're seeing are balance sheet decisions.

[Locusmortis]

Hopefully its dead, changing the location from Japan and using non-Japanese actors should have been enough in and of itself to doom this project.

[darkspark]

Hopefully its dead, changing the location from Japan and using non-Japanese actors should have been enough in and of itself to doom this project.

I have to agree with that. Even calling the movie Akira would make little sense if the setting and actors weren't Japanese.

[Locusmortis]

I have to agree with that. Even calling the movie Akira would make little sense if the setting and actors weren't Japanese.

Yeah, call it Joey instead.....or perhaps not lol

[Hollow]

Pleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbedea dpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbede adpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbed eadpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbedeadpleaseletitbe dead...

[not him - HIM]

Two turkeys canned and its only January.

[thekeith82]

How odd. Just this morning I commented on the story about Chronicle looking like it was shaping up to be the movie the US Akira remake should be, and on the very same day the actual Akira remake gets shitcanned.

And much rejoicing was had...

[Kyu915]

If this were another studio I would just write this off as good riddance to bad rubbish and thank god we're avoiding this mess, BUT this is Warner Bros.

This is a movie studio that has shown it is willing to work with creators of highly valued properties to bring a more or less faithful adaptation of a non american property to the silver screen while casting actors native to the country of the work's origin, even relative unknowns, in major parts(i.e. HARRY POTTER).

So instead of giving the same treatment that they gave to a legendary property from Great Britain to a legendary property from Japan. They are going to let the project die because they can't make it work with an American cast and setting change.

[Joe Kalicki]

I don't see what's so bad about adapting Akira to an American setting. Did anybody complain when Kurosawa adapted King Lear or Macbeth to a Japanese setting? No.

[Hollow]

I don't see what's so bad about adapting Akira to an American setting.

With the setting I could have lived (although it's typically Hollwood: If it's not set in America no American viewer will see it blah blah blah) but basically ALL stuff that was revealed about this movie sounded horrible, especially "Hey, let's cast Keanu Reeves as the teenage main character!". What will Hollywood do next? Cast Sir Ian Mckellen as Spider-Man or Hellen Mirren als Supergirl?