'Akira' remake give go-ahead

[twaddington]

Warner Bros. has finally given the green light to its live-action remake of Katsuhiro Otomo's ‘Akira’. A live-action version of the anime classic has been long-mooted- since way back in the 90's in fact- and just about every young male star in Hollywood has been attached to play one of the two leads at some point or another.  ‘Tron:Legacy’ star Garrett Hedlund is now thought to be a favourite to land a lead role in the film and helming is Spanish director  Jaume Collet-Serra, the guy behind Liam Neeson starrer ‘Unknown’.

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.

The film’s budget is around $90million, which sounds a lot, but when you consider that films such as ‘Inception’ and ‘Tron: Legacy’ had budgets twice that, it becomes apparent that the producers will need to be pretty thrifty.  It is easy to see why Warner Bros are being cautious with the budget though as this project is definitely a bit a risk. Sure, ‘Akira’ the animation has a cult following but there’s no guarantee that fans of the original even want to see a fleshed-up, Westernized version. 

'Akira' fans, let me know your thoughts.

source-http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/22154/-akira-remake-gets-the-green-light