"Blade Runner meets City of God": the movie is a GO!

Firstshowing reports that the AKIRA live-action movie has been given the official-GO, with 2 films planned (!) - with the first movie aiming for a summer 2009-launch (!!)

described as "Blade Runner meets City of God" - the film is primarily going to be adapted from anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo's graphic novel more than the original 1988 anime movie, with each movie based on 3 of the 6 volumes of Otomo's graphic novels.

Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson will helm the movies, while CBR reports that Leonardo DiCaprio "will produce the Warner Bros. film via his Appian Way company, with writer Gary Whitta (former Editor-in-Chief, PC Gamer) penning the screenplay." ... Greg Silverman is overseeing for Warners. Otomo is executive producing. Legendary Pictures is co-financing.


Hollywood Reporter mentions that the new story will take place in "New Manhattan," 'a city rebuilt by Japanese money', instead of the Neo-Tokyo we all lurved in the book.

and while i have no disillusions the product may deviate far from what we have come to lurve (speaking for myself, of coz), so too am i looking forward to another envisioning / variation of what i may become, becoz frankly to totally adapt the existing comicbook or anime may be a tad boring, and worst case? defile the animation, IMHO :)

AKIRA has a new director attached

say whaaaa? a live-action-AKIRA feature film? the 1988 Katsuhiro Otomo-created cyber-punk opus (manga) that had influenced and inspired many a creators and creations thru the past 2-decades, THAT AKIRA? (*faints-fall-down-go-boom but not before whizzing-meself-silly*)


apparently the live-action-adaptation was planned as far back as 2003, but now (according to Bloody-Disgusting.com / via) Warner Bros. Pictures is trying to get the movie up and running again, with the announcement of hiring/attaching 29-year-old Oscar nominated Irish director Ruairi Robinson to bring Kaneda and gang unto celluloid-life! (just hope they hire proper teen actors and not the "nearly-young-but-actually-older" ones, IMHO ;p)

i've actually known about this piece of news a coupla days back, but have been indulging in re-watching AKIRA and other Japanimation-flicks like Jin-Roh Wolf Brigade, Ghost In The Shell (the "original", not the travesty that was "Innocence", IMHO), Appleseed et al - and i haveta say, im uber-jazzed for this to work (if it ever takes off) and needless to say, watching AKIRA way back when heightened my lurve for Japanimation, as well as thoroughly influenced me (as im sure have countless others) in my personal-pursuit of all things cyber-punk and neo-futures, until this day ... *AKIRA RAWKS!*

as far as toys are concerned, ii used to really want a 1/6-Kaneda (by Medicom) but 've always wanted Kaneda's bike in 1/6th more (have since missed the boat) and am always reminded of the missed opportunity in Hong Kong yeeeaaars back, when i found a knock-off-1/6-version at a toy-fair, but did not persist in tracking down the toy-rep gggrrrr ... meanwhile, Hobbyfan.com has a garage-kit version of it [all images via] and i can only but drool like a crushed-fanboy dammit LOL



*le-sigh*

about that AKIRA live-action feature film

so it begins. but before we move on, here's a quick-peek at the original anime that shook the cyberbrainscape:

Original Trailer from the Akira Special Edition DVD on the Extras Disc.
(Japanese dub w/ English subs):


English Thearitical Trailer:


Kaneda's Bike (Japanese w/ subs):