by the fans for the fans

Akira' Production Offices Shut Down...

www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ak...t-warner-bros-278729

YUP.

Dark Knight And Green Lantern Writers Might Hold The Key To Saving Akira [ BleedingCool (rumor) ]

Lobizon wrote:

Dark Knight And Green Lantern Writers Might Hold The Key To Saving Akira [ BleedingCool (rumor) ]

YEAH, HEARD THOSE RUMORS. TALK OF CONS IS...

PRODUCTION WAS GETTING TO BIG. IF BATMAN WAS DONE WITH A SMALL PRODUCTION AND GET HUGE RETURNS THEN WHY NOT AKIRA? THOSE WRITERS WOULD SURE KEEP THE PRODUCTION UNDER WHAT WB WOULD ALLOW.

'Akira' down, not out, at WB


Studio execs want another rewrite of sci-fi epic
By Justin Kroll, Dave McNary

www.variety.com/article/VR1118048156


At a time when blockbuster budgets are facing extra scrutiny, Warner Bros. has halted pre-production on its live-action "Akira" remake, which Jaume Collet-Serra is set to direct.

Studio confirmed Thursday that it shut down the project's Vancouver offices as the creative team reworks the story.

Though it was reported that WB wanted to whittle down the $90 million budget -- cut once already from the $130 million-$150 million range -- insiders tell Variety that execs want fixes on the sci-fi script that's already gone through rewrites from Steve Kloves and David James Kelly.

Delays for major titles are nothing unusual: "The Hobbit" will have taken nearly a decade by the time the first pic unspools in December. In recent months, budget issues were largely responsible for hobbled production starts ("The Lone Ranger" at Disney) or projects being shelved outright ("The Dark Tower" series and "At the Mountains of Madness" at Universal).

And though creative concerns alone are icing "Akira," Warner Bros. projects haven't been immune to the belt-tightening mentality spurred by the dual problems of declining theater attendance and downward DVD revenue. To wit:

•Steven Soderbergh ankled from directing spy pic "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." in November after the director and the studio disagreed over budget issues.

•"Arthur and Lancelot," given a March 15, 2013, release date, is on hold while the studio pares down David Dobkin's $135 million budget to $110 million.

•"Paradise Lost," a retelling of John Milton's epic Lucifer tale financed by Legendary, will miss its January start date over budget issues.

Warner execs declined to comment, though Time Warner chief financial officer John Martin noted at a Citigroup conference Thursday in San Francisco that the company is bullish about WB's 2012 lineup -- "as good as you can at the start of the year about any film slate," he said, singling out "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Hobbit." But he also said the overall DVD market looks weaker in the fourth quarter than the third, which is likely driving decisionmaking.

Warners remains aggressive in acquiring new material, and its slate for the next two years looks formidable. Besides the two "Hobbit" films, it has the most anticipated title of the year in "The Dark Knight Rises" and next year's Superman revamp "Man of Steel." And WB has nearly three dozen producing deals, far more than any other studio, and output pacts with a trio of reliable suppliers in Legendary, Alcon and Village Roadshow.

As for "Akira," which has only "Tron: Legacy" star Garrett Hedlund locked, the studio is by no means pulling the plug. Insiders said a new writer will probably be brought on over the next two weeks to focus on character elements and particularly on the pic's look. While no one's yet been offered the job, studio is said to be eyeing Jonah Nolan ("The Dark Knight," "The Dark Knight Rises") and Michael Green ("Green Lantern").

WB prexy Jeff Robinov met with the "Akira" team to discuss several issues, including who would land the second lead opposite Hedlund. Choices had been narrowed down to Michael Pitt and Dane DeHaan, but the studio wanted to wait until after the holidays to decide. Now that decision will be delayed further.

A collection of storyboards for Ruairi Robinson’s abandoned live-action ‘Akira’ adaptation have made their way online, offering a better look at the sci-fi project in its earliest stages.


screenrant.com/akira-movie-storyboards-sandy-160656/

AFTER EARTH Screenwriter Gary Whitta Says His AKIRA Script Took Place in a Japanese-owned Manhattan

collider.com/akira-movie-news-gary-whitta/



by Adam Chitwood
Posted: May 28th, 2013 at 2:14 pm

A live-action feature film adaptation of the popular manga Akira has been a long time coming, but thus far has yet to come to fruition. After a prolonged development process, the film was finally beginning to move into pre-production at Warner Bros. in 2011 with Garrett Hedlund cast as Kaneda and the studio in various stages of negotiations with Kristen Stewart, Gary Oldman, and Helena Bonham Carter for roles. However, the studio subsequently halted production on the Jaume Collet-Serra-directed film in early 2012, citing their desire for more script work to be done. The project appears to have now sunk back into development hell, as we haven’t heard a solid update regarding WB’s Akira in over a year.

Steve recently sat down with screenwriter Gary Whitta in anticipation of the release of the upcoming sci-fi film After Earth, and during the course of their conversation Whitta talked at length about his work on Akira. As one of the first screenwriters on the film, Whitta revealed his intriguing location change for the film that attempted to solve the issue of “Americanizing” the story, the difficulty of getting the movie made, and more. Hit the jump to read on.

Speaking with Steve, Whitta talked about his involvement with the Akira film and why it was so difficult to get it off the ground:
“I worked on it for about six months. And I pretty much lived on the lot with the director at the time, Ruairi Robinson, trying to work out that movie. It’s a tough movie; it’s hard to figure out how to do it below an R-rating. It’s a difficult movie, which deals with very mature subject matter; it’s hardcore.”

In addition to the rating issue, Whitta said that another difficulty in adapting the manga was how to deal with the Americanization of the story:
“We always dealt with the problem of, [and] I think what a lot of the fans felt was problematic, was the westernization of it; [it’s like] “they’re never going to make the $100 million movie with an all-Japanese cast. You need to westernize it.” And that almost became kind of a joke—like, the idea of Shia LaBeouf as Tetsuo or whatever. People are going to have a hard time with that, and certainly the fans.”

In order to solve the problem of “westernizing” the film without completely throwing out the Japanese setting, Whitta came up with a rather fascinating solution that involved altering the story’s location quite drastically:
“We came up with an idea that I actually thought was really cool; I don’t know if it survived into future versions. It’s not New Manhattan—because that was the [initial] idea, right? They moved it in to New Manhattan. I said, ‘it’s not New Manhattan, it’s still New Tokyo but—this is going to sound weird—it’s actually in Manhattan.’ What we did was, the idea is that there’d been a massive economic crash in the United States and in our desperation, we sold Manhattan Island to the Japanese, who were becoming a very powerful economic force, and they were having an overpopulation problem, because Japan is a series of islands, it can only accommodate so many people. So they just bought Manhattan Island, and it became the fifth island of Japan, and they populated it. It became New Tokyo, and it was just off the coast of the United States. So it was Japanese territory, it wasn’t New Tokyo, but there were Americans who kind of lived in little Americanized quarters of it. I felt it was a way to do a kind of cool Western-Eastern fusion of the two ideas; not fully Japanese, not fully westernized. Whether or not you’ll ever see that version, I don’t know, but I thought that was kind of a cool solution to that problem of westernization of a Japanese concept.”

A number of screenwriters worked on Akira after Whitta, so as he said there’s no telling whether his “New Tokyo” idea survived in subsequent drafts, but it’s definitely a different kind of direction for the story. Read the full transcript of what Whitta had to say about Akira below, and look for Steve’s complete interview with Whitta on Collider soon.

Collider: What was your experience like working on Akira?

GARY WHITTA: I worked on it for about six months. And I pretty much lived on the lot with the director at the time, Ruairi Robinson, trying to work out that movie. It’s a tough movie; it’s hard to figure out how to do it below an R-rating. It’s a difficult movie, which deals with very mature subject matter; it’s hardcore. I hope they figure out how to make it. My experience on it… I’ll just say I learned a lot about the realities of studio filmmaking. My friend Albert Hughes was on it after me; and they’ve had numerous writers come and go. Some movies are just trickier to crack than others, and I hope they crack it, because I would love to see them get it right. But I understand why it’s difficult.

Well, it’s one of those things where, if it could be made for $50 million, then of course they could do an R. But it’s at least $100 million to make, and maybe even $150 million.

WHITTA: I’ll give you a little something that’s actually never been spoken about before. How interesting it is, I’ll let you decide. But we always dealt with the problem of, [and] I think what a lot of the fans felt was problematic, was the westernization of it; [it’s like] “they’re never going to make the $100 million movie with an all-Japanese cast. You need to westernize it.” And that almost became kind of a joke—like, the idea of Shia LaBeouf as Tetsuo or whatever. People are going to have a hard time with that, and certainly the fans.

So we came up with an idea that I actually thought was really cool; I don’t know if it survived into future versions. It’s not New Manhattan—because that was the [initial] idea, right? They moved it in to New Manhattan. I said, it’s not New Manhattan, it’s still New Tokyo but—this is going to sound weird—it’s actually in Manhattan. What we did was, the idea is that there’d been a massive economic crash in the United States and in our desperation, we sold Manhattan Island to the Japanese, who were becoming a very powerful economic force, and they were having an overpopulation problem, because Japan is a series of islands, it can only accommodate so many people. So they just bought Manhattan Island, and it became the fifth island of Japan, and they populated it. It became New Tokyo, and it was just off the coast of the United States. So it was Japanese territory, it wasn’t New Tokyo, but there were Americans who kind of lived in little Americanized quarters of it. I felt it was a way to do a kind of cool Western-Eastern fusion of the two ideas; not fully Japanese, not fully westernized. Whether or not you’ll ever see that version, I don’t know, but I thought that was kind of a cool solution to that problem of westernization of a Japanese concept.

Either way, expensive as hell to bring to the screen…

WHITTA: How do you do it? I think rather than try to figure out how you do an R movie for a number, it was more about “Let’s get it to a PG-13 and then we can spend the money we need to make.” But that has its own problems. Again, I would love to see them make it; I have all the good will in the world for that movie. I understand why it’s been difficult for the studio to make a movie that they feel can be true to the subject matter but also economically make sense for them.

It’s so tricky because you and I understand what’s going on. But the average person who doesn’t really understand how movies are made is like “This is a no-brainer.” But the fact is, the rating equals how much money you can spend. It’s just statistics…

WHITTA: And sometimes it’s just not the right time. I always feel like, when you’ve got a piece of material, it will always find a way to get made. Movies are dead for a long time, and then they come back and they find the right time for them. One of the difficulties when I was working on Akira is that Watchmen was coming out around that time. It came out, and it wasn’t a huge hit. It was successful, but I don’t think it was what the studio hoped it would be. And it’s a similar thing, right? Difficult, mature graphic novel that’s not Superman; it’s something only the fans really know about. New York gets destroyed, it’s very uncompromising. And I think they looked at that and said, “Well, why would we want to do exactly that again?” I think that was part of what complicated it.

So, like I said, I had a great time working on it. I got to sit in rooms where we got to design the bike, and you have those days where you’re like, “You know what? This is why this is still the coolest job in the world.” Even with all the aggravation and all the frustrations that you have, you get to sit around and say, “What does Kaneda’s bike look like in this version of the movie?” And we had the concepts, we built some of the models and it’s like, this still a badass job to do.

Look for our full interview with Whitta soon.


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Jaume Collet-Serra Returns to Direct ‘Akira’ (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com/2013/film/news/akira-jaume-collet-serra-1200571854/

Leonardo DiCaprio produces with Jennifer Davisson Killoran, Andrew Lazar


Jaume Collet-Serra is in discussions to return to the “Akira” directors chair, signing on to helm Warner Bros. adaptation of the popular anime pic. The helmer left in early 2012 after production stalled.

In early 2012, the studio shut down pre-production so that fixes could be made to the script, including tightening the budget from its original $90 million range. At the time, Collet-Serra was in such high demand coming off the recent success of the Liam Neeson action pic “Unknown,” that he decided to leave instead of waiting for the changes to be made so that he could pursue other projects. He eventually landed another Neeson pic, “Non Stop,” which bows next February.

The studio did begin looking at other directors recently, including “Catfish” helmers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, in hopes of finding someone who could deliver a film on a more smaller scale. But ultimately, the studio was still in love with Collet-Serra’s vision, and sources say the director found time in his schedule as well as a new way to appraoch the adaptation that would meet the studio’s budget request.

Collet-Serra is currently in pre-production on the crime pic “Run All Night” with Neeson, Joel Kinnaman and Ed Harris and would do “Akira” afterwards in spring of 2014. It is unknown what the new budget would be.

WB acquired the potential tentpole project for a seven-figure sum from Japanese manga publisher Kodansha in 2008. 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.

Appian Way’s Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran are producing with Mad Chance’s Andrew Lazar. Katsuhiro Otomo, who wrote and directed the 1988 Japanese anime pic of the same name, will exec produce.

Garrett Hedlund was attached to star but it is unknown if his schedule would still allow him to do it.

Collet-Serra is repped by CAA and Management 360.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra Hopes AKIRA Will Be His Next Project

collider.com/akira-live-action-movie-jaume-collet-serra/

After spending years trying to get a live-action adaptation of Akira off the ground, it seemed as though Jaume Collet-Serra was going to be the man to do it – that is until plans imploded due to budget issues. However, two years after Warner Bros. insisted on re-working the script to bring down the $90 million tab, news broke that the project was back on track. In August, word got out that Collet-Serra was in discussions to re-board the production and apparently those discussions went quite well because Collet-Serra himself confirmed he’s actively working on the project.

While talking to the director about his latest film, Non-Stop, Collet-Serra made a point to note:

“I’m focusing on Akira though.”

In fact, Akira might even be his next endeavor because he also added:

“So hopefully that’s the next one.”

The main issue for Warner Bros. has been that big budget. The Albert Hughes version of the adaptation apparently would have cost them $180 million and even though Collet-Serra’s only called for $90 million, it still wasn’t low enough. The studio wanted the film to fall within the $60 million to $70 million range. Collet-Serra didn’t confirm if he hit an appropriate number and whether that’s why Warner Bros. is giving him the go-ahead, but he still noted:

“I’ve done two movies since I put this little pause on that project … but now powers that be are interested.”

When asked if there was a specific component of the production that he deemed worthy of higher costs, Collet-Serra explained that it comes down to the big picture more than anything.

“No, it’s an overall conceptual thing. You know, it’s how big the movie should be, you know, for the complexity of the concept.”

You can catch Collet-Serra discussing his plans for Akira in the clip below and be sure to keep an eye out for our full chat with the director as we near the February 28th release of Non-Stop.