---

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The anime classic "Akira" is getting the live-action big screen treatment courtesy of Leonardo DiCaprio and a first-time feature filmmaker.
ADVERTISEMENT

"Akira" originated in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story was set in a neon-lit postapocalyptic "New Tokyo" in 2019 where a teen biker gang member is subjected to a government experiment that unleashes his latent powers. The gang's leader must find a way to stop the ensuing swathe of destruction.

With its mature themes and cutting-edge animation, "Akira" was a milestone movie in anime and mainstream animation circles, leading the way for anime to make inroads into Western pop culture in the 1990s.

The new story, which DiCaprio will produce for Warner Bros., ideally would be a two-part epic, with the first movie coming out next summer. The action will move to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by Japanese money.

It will mark the feature directorial debut of commercials veteran Ruairi Robinson, who sold the studio on his vision. The Irish native, who was nominated for a best animated short Oscar in 2001 for the sci-fi comedy "Fifty Percent Grey," also wrote and directed a sci-fi short titled "The Silent City."

---

---

---

---

---

---

Vulture has learned that Warner Bros. is negotiating to reteam with The Book of Eli's Hughes brothers to have them direct a live-action remake of the cult favorite Akira, from a script by Iron Man scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. (Akira is being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's company, Appian Way, along with Andrew Lazar, who’s also currently producing an adaptation of DC Comics’ Jonah Hex for Warners.)

Even if you had read all of Katsuhiro Otomo’s epic 1982 manga and/or seen his own 1988 anime adaptation, summarizing the plot to Akira would still prove a bit of a challenge. As near as we can figure, Akira is about the leader of a biker gang who tries to save his kidnapped pal from a powerful supernatural experiment. (It might also be a psycho-philosophical exploration of corruption, the will to power, and the maturation of man and mankind, but we were actually pretty high when we first saw it in college, so please don’t hold us to that.)

Respecting the source's complexity (or perhaps acquiescing to it), Warners won’t proceed with a single, live-action remake of the film, which trimmed away the last half of the 2,182-page graphic novel in order to weigh in at just over two hours. Instead, we hear that the studio is planning to make Akira in two parts, with the first three volumes of the six-volume manga making up the first film, due out next year.

An official release from the studio is expected later this week.

---

---

---

---

Albert Hughes talked about this on The Kevin and Josh Movie Show on 106.7 HD2 (CBS RADIO – Washington D.C.) quite recently and discussed the idea behind a PG-13 Akira. “The first thing they said to me was it had to be PG-13,” Hughes said and then followed up with labeling it as either being “a challenge” or a “hind-ridge.” The best thing Hughes said he could do was make it feel like The Dark Knight. That’s something every filmmaker name drops nowadays and there’s some truth there that it did push the PG-13 pretty hard, but you could easily also argue it was a bit held back by being PG-13. That’s a whole different topic altogether, but again, it’s a comparison nearly every director makes now.

---

---

---