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

grrliz, we have news that it does in fact, get worse. Gary Oldman has been offered the role of The Colonel and Helena Bonham Carter has been offered the role of Lady Miyako.

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	female_fanboy 2011-10-21 07:02 pm UTC (link)
	I suspect that this consulting with Asian-American groups went something like this: "So, who here has Asian friends?" "Um, I do." "Okay. So, are they bothered by us setting Akira in New York and making the main characters white?" "Actually, I don't think they even know that-" "So they're not offended? Great! Let's give this thing the greenlight!" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	adevyish 2011-10-22 07:45 am UTC (link)
	Racebending.com said they sat down with WB people in July along with several other Asian-American groups - I'm guessing these included MANAA and the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition (which among other organizations includes East West Players). To be honest, that fact makes me even more disheartened. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cinnamonical
2011-10-25 09:40 am UTC (link)

I'm disheartened too, and I can just imagine that feeling multiplied a hundredfold among the Asian-American groups who actually met with WB and thought they had a chance to genuinely make a difference in the casting of this movie. WB's lineup for actors they've tapped for the various roles don't even have the benefit of claiming any smidgen of relative ethnic heritage, like someone like Keanu Reeves who part-Chinese according to Wikipedia. (At least I don't think they do, based on my general knowledge of the names on that list. If I'm wrong, go ahead and correct me.)

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	full_metal_ox 2011-10-23 11:37 pm UTC (link)
	And did that "Asian best friend" happen to be M. Night Shyamalan? (Reply to this)(Parent)

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