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After 23 years in development hell, Warner Bros. gives up on making a live-action Akira - but others are lining up to try
It took the Akira manga 39 years to recover from World War III. It might take that long for a live-action Akira movie to be made as well.
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Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is one of the greatest manga ever made.
Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is one of the greatest anime ever made.
After 23 years and at least five different versions of it, Warner Bros. is giving up on trying to make a good live-action Akira, reads an article over at The Hollywood Reporter. The movie trade says unnamed "Producers and talent" are already lining up to take a crack at it.
Way back in 2002 hot off the success of the original Blade, director Steve Norrington was put in charge of a live-action Akira for Warner Bros., telling The Hollywood Reporter he aimed to "preserve the tone, the visual and the epic scope of the original... " (great!) "whilst telling a somewhat more accessible story (to Western audiences)." That 2002 quote would prove to be ominious, because among the five different aborted attempts on Akira by Warner Bros. included relocating it from Neo Tokyo to Chicago (and later Manhattan), whitewashing Tetsuo into 'Travis,' as well as taking the whole 'biker' part of the story out.
While Warner Bros. Discovery would seemingly have the money to renew the rights to keep trying at a live-action Akira (as it had done for the past 23), it has assumedly backed off, with the rights now reverting back to the original publisher of the Akira manga, Kodansha.
Maybe this time someone will come aboard with a plan to make it... or not. Either way, I'm re-watching Akira tonight.
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