Warner Bros. greenlights live-action Akira for 2012
According to Variety, the studio has finally made it official with a greenlight for a $90 million budget and an eye toward a late February/early March start date. The report confirms that Jaume Collett-Serra (Unknown) will direct...

The studio provides this synopsis for the Steve Kloves script: Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments.

Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) is a frontrunner for one of the leads (most likely Kaneda) while the shortlist of actors for Tetsuo is allegedly Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, James McAvoy.

Edit: Thanks to

	full_metal_ox 2011-10-21 12:04 am UTC (link)
	And never mind that Akira was a lot of Western anime fans' introduction to the medium, and Neo-Tokyo now one of the archetypal and magical (if darkly dystopian) places in the popular imagination. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	havocthecat 2011-10-21 09:53 pm UTC (link)
	It was one of the first anime films I'd ever seen, I have to admit, so, yes. Right there. (I saw Vampire Princess Miyu and Devil Hunter Yohko first, because I gravitate to shows staring women.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	full_metal_ox 2011-10-23 11:35 pm UTC (link)
	Heck, Miyazaki's body of work alone should suffice to refute Hollywood's conviction that female (as well as POC)leads are automatic box-office poison. (And there's Zeiram; Bubblegum Crisis; Ghost in the Shell; Secret of Blue Water--and either of us could stretch the list to interminable length.) (Reply to this)(Parent)