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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zebeckras
2011-10-22 02:27 pm UTC (link)

Are they... actually still calling it "Akira"? I mean, there's nothing to indicate yet whether they're keeping the names Tetsuo and Kaneda, but - if they set it in America, and they use an all-white cast, does it not occur to them that... maybe using the name "Akira" for no apparent reason would... make no sense? Even be, um, really really stupid?

What am I saying this is Hollywood. :P

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	elektra3 2011-10-22 05:31 pm UTC (link)
	Well, it's not as if the fact that it's set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo is massively relevant to the story or anything. OH, WAIT. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jaseroque 2011-10-22 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	They called a movie without any karate in it "The Karate Kid". My hopes for sanity prevailing are not high. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dark_puck 2011-10-22 10:12 pm UTC (link)
	Wasn't that marketed overseas as "The Kung-Fu Kid", or am I making shit up again? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rosehiptea 2011-10-23 04:37 am UTC (link)
	That's what I heard. IMDB seems to agree. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jaseroque 2011-10-23 12:29 pm UTC (link)
	In Japan it is called "Best Kid", but fortunately so was the original. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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