All Stop On American Akira

Morning all,

That spine tingling screeching sound you heard last week were the breaks being put on the North American remake of Akira… Again. Ok, let’s be honest with ourselves for a second here, this isn’t the first time, there’s tonnes of fan outcry to stop this and it just feels as though the North American Akira is the wrong thing to do. This has been “in the making,” for a few years now with some big names attached, then detached (Leo and Keannu), but once WB finally found a director it sounded as if they were on their way. It even got so far as to start renting production offices in Vancouver.

But Akira is once again sent packing, this time by the all mighty dollar. It turns out the original script, the one approved by WB to start casting and looking for a director is too big. Money is the current issue and it requires some reworking of the script. I guess blowing up Neo-Tokyo in the North American sense costs a lot of money. In any case, we should take this time to look at another film that could be dealing with a similar theme.

I’m speaking of course about Chronicle. I’ve written about this flick before, but as we inch closer and closer to the release date, I’m becoming more excited. According to the synopsis, Chronicle follows the story (in found footage style) of three teenagers as they develop powers and goof off. The only problem is that one of them, the nerdy, geeky one that’s seemingly unaccepted by most people, goes a bit off the wire. Sound familiar Akira fans? That’s why I’m not too torn up about Akira throwing on the brakes. If the flick eventually goes through, then good for Warner Bros. If it doesn’t I’ll personally be a bit relieved, and I can always get my fix of this type of story with Chronicle next month… hopefully.