Live-action remakes of anime can be…let’s be generous and say hit and miss. Adapting such a fluid form of storytelling for the real world hasn’t always clicked, and there have been a lot of bad adaptations along the way (look at the live-action Ghost in the Shell remake).
So it’s not too big a shock that Warner Bros. Discovery has confirmed that, after almost two decades of futile attempts, they’re finally giving up on a live-action version of Akira, one of the most iconic anime movies of all time. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Warner Bros has allowed the rights to the story to lapse and return to the original creator/owners, Kodansha. That leaves it up for grabs for anyone else who wants to tackle the tale.
First published in manga form in 1982, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira became a landmark anime movie in 1988. The film regularly lands on lists of the best sci-fi and animated films ever made. It is now considered the start of the “dystopian cyberpunk” sci-fi trend, and its influence has been felt across not just anime but scores of sci-fi and action films and TV shows.
After World War III, Neo-Tokyo is a city plagued by riots, gangs, corrupt corporations and more. Gang leader Shōtarō Kaneda leads a protest that soon uncovers how an “esper” named Akira was responsible for Tokyo’s original destruction. This sets off a twisted fight against a super-powered mutant with spectacular animation. It’s one of those movies that’s hard to describe but impossible to forget.
It’s little wonder that Hollywood has wanted to adapt the tale, but the road to get there has been shaky to say the least.
The production hell of Akira
Hollywood has been trying to make a live-action version of Akira for many years, and the history of the project making its way through the system is worthy of its own book. Sony first got the rights in the late 1990s, but couldn’t do anything with them. Warner Bros. latched onto the rights in 2002 and were ready to make a film, only to spend tens of millions of dollars on a project that went through five directors and almost a dozen writers before going nowhere.
The short version is that Stephen Norrington was going to direct a take that moved the story to Chicago. The failure of Norrington’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003 ended that. Ruairí Robinson then came up with a plan to split the story into two movies; this version would have taken place in a New York City now populated mostly by Japanese immigrants.
When that fell through, a massive revolving door of would-be directors and writers passed started up; hopefuls included the Hughes Brothers and Jaume Collet-Serra; that version almost got off the ground, only to be halted the following year amid numerous rewrites.
In 2019, it looked like the movie would get going at last with Taika Waititi now directing a version based more on the original manga than the 1988 movie. However, there was a huge delay thanks first to Waititi’s commitments to the Thor movies and then to the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, Waititi took on more projects like the Time Bandits series.
After all this, Warner Bros pulling the plug on the project only makes sense, and it may be for the best.
Why a live-action Akira is tricky
The biggest hurdle so many of these creators face with Akira is that the story is so tied into Tokyo and Japan’s history that moving it to Chicago or New York automatically takes away some of the impact. It’s also trying to take the 1980s feel of the story and transplant it to today.
Another concern has been the “whitewashing” of the characters in earlier attempts. The live-action Ghost in the Shell movie proved how casting a white actor in an Asian role can backfire big time. While Waititi had said he would cast Asian-Americans, it’s still a challenge for studios to back a cast without insisting on some American actors of different races.
The high esteem for the original Akira may be the biggest hurdle. For many anime fans, the very idea of a live-action take is almost blasphemy. The movie has endured for decades because of its vibrant energy that few projects before or since have managed to match. Going for a live-action take just seems like a recipe for disaster.
It’s possible another studio may try their hand at this, as Akira still has name recognition. But given the many failed attempts to get it going, perhaps it’s better that Akira stand on its own as an animated classic.
Akira is currently streaming on CrunchyRoll.
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