'Akira' live-action for 2013 in dev. w/ Hughes Brothers as dir.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

'Akira' Production Offices Shut Down As Warner Bros. Scrutinizes Budget.

The project, which has been through several incarnations, is being shut down in the face of casting, script and budget issues. The production offices in Vancouver are being closed, with below-the-line talent and crew told to stop working. “Everybody is being sent home,” according to an insider.
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If the issues cannot be resolved, the project could end up being shelved entirely, say insiders.

Collet-Serra already had halved the budget from the incarnation that Albert Hughes was going to direct. He now is working on a budget in the $90 million range. But with only Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) signed on to star, and Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter in various stages of dealmaking, the studio feels that the price tag is still too high for a sci-fi project with that level of star wattage. The goal, says an insider, is to bring the budget down to between $60 million and $70 million. However, another source close to the production says the script, rather than the budget, has skidded the production. The project, this person says, will remain in the $90 million range.

 

[Talosian]

Is this still the white washed version?

If it isn't the white washed version, it won't be made. Hollywood doesn't like to make movies with no big brand name stars and when it does, the movie title better be the big brand name. Star Trek qualifies; Akira does not.

When the devil is America going to grow up and be open to films starring non-white or non-American actors? Every other country under the sun aside from North Korea is receptive to American films.

I'm not a fan of Akira, but this version should have Japanese actors. Japan's been a U.S. ally for almost a lifetime, and is the second major industrialized nation in the world. Are Japanese faces so foreign or ugly to us?

 

[Reverend]

^I don't think "America" is the problem so much as Hollywood executives. Big money means big risk and that tends to engender a certain degree of conservative thinking. It's pretty well known that the big studios have been underestimating their audiences' intelligence for decades.