You know it’s been quite a long time since the last time we had an opportunity to talk about Akira, with the last bit of news being pretty disappointing with “The Book of Eli” director >Albert Hughes walking away from the project. Today we get some positive news for the long gestating project as the movie is finally greenlit with a director and everything!
Source: Variety
In July, Warners tapped Spanish helmer Jaume Collet-Serra (“Unknown” ) to direct at a budget of $90 million, which was brought down from an initial figure of well over $100 million. Where the budget stands now isn’t clear, and Warner Bros. had no comment on the project…
With a greenlight in place, studio can begin shopping for the two male leads; sources tell Variety that “Tron: Legacy” star Garrett Hedlund is considered a front-runner. Both Warners and Collett-Sera have been keen on the thesp, but had to wait for a greenlight to make their move.
Well this is somewhat surprising news but not really. WB had been trying pretty hard to get this movie going over the past year and the announcement that they’ve been silently working on the project going isn’t that much of a shocker.
I’m still super curious to find out how exactly they plan on making the zany story of Akira work in a live action environment. The pure idea of them doing a shot-for-shot adaptation is pretty ludicrous and I’m expecting some hard changes and tough decisions to be made on the road to release. I don’t think I’ve seen any of Jaume Collet-Serra movies but I do have a few friends who have told me mildly good things about “Unknown” and “House of Wax”.
As it stands I’m looking forward to finding out how things develop from here and what kind of cast they plan to assemble. It’s on the radar, even if only out of curiosity.
