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The Hughes Brothers Tackle Akira

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 11:45 am by Jamie

Kaneda's Bike

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the live-action Akira movie so I figured it was floating around in development hell limbo. Now we get word that Warner Bros. is in talks with the Hughes brothers for them to direct the film. The good news is that they’re not going to cram all of Akira into a single flick. Instead, the first film will cover the first three volumes and the second will cover the last three. If things go as planned, Akira part one will hit theaters sometime next year which seems awfully soon to me.

Now the last time we heard about this sucker, they were changing the location from Neo-Tokyo to Neo-New York. I don’t know if this is still the plan. On the one hand, I’d be interested to see what an American take on Akira would look like. On the other hand, I kinda want to see some Asian people on the screen. I think the Hughes brothers will make a big mistake if they stick too close to the source material (i.e. Watchmen). They should concentrate on making a good movie first. If some shit needs to be cut, cut it. If some stuff needs to be added, add that shit. But if they make the same mistakes that Zack Snyder did with Watchmen, Akira will stink horribly.

Source: Vulture

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under Action, Animation, Comic Book Flicks, Comics, Henshin Korner, Movies, Remix, Sci Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “The Hughes Brothers Tackle Akira”

  1. Avatarkindless
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
    1

    I thought Watchmen was the best adaptation of graphic novel to film I’ve ever seen.

    With that said, I have absolutely -no- faith in the Akira film.
  2. AvatarJeff Posey
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
    2

    I’m definitely excited to see more of in some film for or another. I loved the original work and the movie, but the movie only touches on the shear enormity of the books. I mean I’m pretty sure by my count that the giant explosion at the end of the movie happened about 4 times in the book in different locations.
  3. AvatarTungsten
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
    3

    Hollywood does not generally do a good job with film adaptations of anime or comic books or video games. Heck, they don’t generally do a very good job with the live action adaptation of any non-live action visual media. There are a few exceptions to this: 300 was good, Watchmen was pretty good, Sin City as well. They’ve also done a few that while not good, weren’t necessarily bad: the first X-Men movie, the first Spiderman movie. Certainly, even if their track record isn’t great, they have the wherewithal to do Akira justice… But it’s not going to be easy.

    I for one, am glad that they will be changing it to be in NNY, instead of NT… Why? Well, lets look at Hollywoods track record with films that supposedly take place in Tokyo. After thinking up a few examples, lets ignore the ONLY good one (Lost in Translation). We’re left with… Memoir of a Geisha, where a Chinese woman portrays a Japanese woman in a story that strays so far from being even remotely believable that all the Japanese people involved in the original story felt insulted and angry. If that was all there was to it, I’d say: Okay, so they messed up pretty badly. But, it’s not. I’m not going to talk about “The Last Samurai” because I found the movie enjoyable. Yes, there were some issues with it, but it was not really a bad movie… I’m going to talk instead about a movie that blows all the others away in its sheer horror. “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” Where should I start? I actually don’t even know where to start. Just about the only thing this movie does right, is that it looks like some of the actors are at least really Japanese… Um… Yeah, that’s really just about it. Everything else about that movie is so, so, so very insulting, and just plain bad… For a movie allegedly about the subject matter it’s about, it doesn’t even portray actual culture in Japan very well at all… It’s more like it’s set in Tokyow York anyway.

    So yeah, it might be sad to not see many Asian people in Hollywoods adaptation of Akira, they will have at least dodged a couple of bullets easily by setting it in Neo NY. Does this automatically mean the movie will be good? Well, no, it just means that they’re on the right track to making it good. An (anime) film adaptation of Akira has already been done. I think that the most important thing they need to do to make their film good, is to make it different. If you walk into the theater and immediately start making comparisons… They’re likely in trouble. So it needs to be good on its own merits, recognizable as the story, but so different that any actual comparison becomes impossible.

    There’s a far cry between our recent batman movies and the batman movies that have come before it. Lets hope there’s an equal difference between this Akira movie and the Akira manga and anime adaptations.
  4. AvatarFmF
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
    4

    Guess it a good idea they splitting it up but i seriously doubt it’ll be good.Personally i rather see the city be ambiguous where it isn’t clear were the city at just a giant techno melting pot of pretty much every culture.That just how i picture the future though.
  5. AvatarJenS
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
    5

    I can see a relocation to NNY, only so long as they keep the lead a Japanese American. New York is an incredibly diverse city so to say an Asian lead is hard to come by is ridiculous. That being said, Akira is a pretty epic project and considering Hollywoods track record, I say its good to be extreamly cautious.
  6. AvatarJamie
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 12:13 am
    6

    As long as the words “Shia” and “LaBeouf” are never used in conjunction with this production, there will be hope!
  7. AvatarLurklen
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 5:44 am
    7

    See I liked the Watchmen adaptation, and sadly have never read Akira. I’ve only seen the animated film(which was crazy) so it’s tough for me to judge. I will say though that I like keeping the culture it was written in and for in the film would seem like a good idea. And it being a futuristic Tokyo could mean some wiggle room as far as casting.
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