Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production company Appian Way have been spending almost three decades trying to make a live-action adaptation of the popular manga “Akira” that was turned into the landmark Katsuhiro Otomo (also created the manga) anime film in 1988, and sadly, their time with the property has ended.
This update comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter, who first revealed that the studio has gave up the film rights to “Akira” and they’ll revert back to Japanese manga publisher Kodansha, which has put the final nail in the coffin of Taikai Waititi‘s iteration that the filmmaker had hoped to cast actors with Japanese backgrounds. Warner Bros. had spent ages trying to Americanize the Japan-set cyberpunk property, nearly casting all white leads at different stages and trying to move the setting to the United States.
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Despite optimism that another studio/streamer will gobble up “Akira,” the outlet stops short of naming who exactly is actively courting the manga property.
The basic gist of “Akira” is that a teenage member of a Neo-Tokyo biker gang is experimented on by a murky secret government collective after an accident leading to an overload of powers that threaten the entire population of the city as the youngster becomes increasingly unstable/violent.
Some of the other directors that got involved or were in the mix over the years included Stephen Norrington (“Blade”), Albert Hughes (“Book of Eli”), Jaume Collet-Serra (“Black Adam”), and Jordan Peele (“Nope”).
Peele had spoken to the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2023 that he was “glad” he didn’t end up doing it, “I’m glad I didn’t do it because I feel like staying away from that, trying to interpret that IP, just set me on the path to create something new,” Peele said. Similar to Waititi, Peele had been championing a manga-accurate version with an all-Japanese cast but ultimately passed on the studio’s offer to focus on his originals (“Nope” ended up using the iconic motorcycle side). “I want to see Neo-Tokyo,” Peele added. “I want to see an all-Japanese cast. I want to feel immersed in the world, the way of the films in the manga.”
After the casting backlash and wonky adaptation of DreamWorks‘ “Ghost In The Shell” from director Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson, we can’t be terribly shocked that the studio consistently got cold feet and had issues trying to lock down a budget. Another anime property that Appian Way and WB had been trying to adapt but never went anywhere was the hyper-violent “Ninja Scroll.”
We hope that local Japanese filmmakers and screenwriters get a crack at “Akira,” as Hollywood had their time with it, but we’ll have to wait to see where the film rights land.
- Christopher Marc
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