Gary Whitta On AKIRA Problems; Says His Script Took Place In A Japanese-Owned Manhattan

Gary Whitta On AKIRA Problems; Says His Script Took Place In A Japanese-Owned Manhattan

In a new interview with Collider for the release of After Earth (his recent movie contribution) screenwriter Gary Whitta discussed the many problems the Live-Action Akira production had trying to "americanize” the manga.

News
By LucasMend - May 28, 2013 03:05 PM EST
Filed Under: Akira
Source: Collider



The long promissed live-action version of the acclaimed manga Akira is surely one of the most problematics adaptations we've seen. The film had a long process of development, with Jaume Collet-Serra set as the director, Garrett Hedlund cast as Kaneda and Warner Bros. negotiating with actors like Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter and others for roles. Unfortunately (or maybe it was for the best?) the studio stopped production for the adaptation in early 2012, saying that the script needed more work. Now there's no word on the project development, but I would say it is officialy stuck in development hell.

Even though the production is going nowhere so soon, one of the first screenwriters of the project, Gary Whitta (After Earth), sat down with Steve from Collider and shared some very interesting bits of information on some of the production developments of the movie. “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.”

He completes saying that, to have a more "americanized" film, his script featured the fact that the United States sold the Manhattan Island to the Japanese in a desperate measure after a massive economic crash. “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.”



Akira is a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk science fiction film. It was written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, who based it on his manga of the same name. The film is set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. The film's plot focuses on Shotaro Kaneda, a biker gang member, as he tries to stop Tetsuo Shima from releasing Akira. While most of the character designs and basic settings were adapted from the original 2182-page manga epic, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, pruning much of the last half of the manga. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation and film making in general.


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fedup
fedup - 5/28/2013, 3:23 PM
Should've taken place in a Japanese-Owned Japan.
DukeAcureds
DukeAcureds - 5/28/2013, 3:26 PM
That's a really well thought out solution to that problem. But, really, there should be no fvcking around on this. No compromise. It's a no guts no glory thing. Look at it this way; Lord of the Rings. In Lord of the Rings, they didn't move it from Middle Earth to modern New York an cast known actors. So why do the same with Akira? Nobody's saying that the language has to be Japanese. Just the setting and the actors.
And make it a gorram trilogy. Don't just remake the anime. That probably wouldn't be very succesful. Do the books. Do a trilogy. Spend more money on the project than has ever been spent on anything ever before. That sort of publicity usually pays off (with the exception of Waterworld). Look at Titanic, look at Avatar.
If you go al out with this, you really can't lose. You're looking at money and Oscars.
Khan2013
Khan2013 - 5/28/2013, 3:26 PM
And they called my casting politically incorrect
Hellsing
Hellsing - 5/28/2013, 3:28 PM
Japanese Owned Merica![frick] yeah (well Manhattan).
fedup
fedup - 5/28/2013, 3:30 PM
@DukeAcureds because in Lord of the Rings everyone is white and speaks English. Not calling that production racist, before someone starts throwing that word around at what is an amazing series of flicks, but 9 times out of 10 Hollywood will have nothing to do with casting anyone but a white actor/actress in a lead role (let alone having almost the entire cast be foreign) of a sci-fi/action flick when the budget is hundreds of millions of dollars. Hollywood is gradually getting more diverse, but until there's a massive shakeup of the money men and audiences show they're more willing to see diverse casts (I honestly think generally audiences don't really think of race as a factor on whether or not they go see a movie) the money men won't allow more diverse casts.
DukeAcureds
DukeAcureds - 5/28/2013, 3:31 PM
Khan2013@ Don't forget continuity contradicting.
DukeAcureds
DukeAcureds - 5/28/2013, 3:35 PM
fedup@ That's the problem right there. The money men. Like, they don't think a female superhero action vehicle will make money, so they don't give us our gorram Wonder Woman film, despite the fact that series like Underworld and Tomb Raider keep raking in the cash.
They don't make gutsy moves, becasue of false assumptions.
And, like they say in the film industry, Assumption is the mother of all fvck-ups.
fedup
fedup - 5/28/2013, 3:37 PM
@DukeAcureds They won't take risks because they have no incentive to take risks. They're still making bank by playing it safe. The only way there will be a shake up of any sort is if people stop paying for reboots/remakes/sequels, but since we like those things (for the most part) we'll keep paying to see them. It's a vicious circle that won't end until audiences just flat out get stubborn.
DukeAcureds
DukeAcureds - 5/28/2013, 3:42 PM
fedup, yeah. But what else are we gonna do, right? It's like I always say. It doesn't matter what you give the kids, just mae a commercial telling them they want it and they'll want it. We all like to go to the cinema and if there's nothing but shit on at the cinema then we'll go watch shit.
Hollywood's like Marie Antoinette. They're told that the masses are starving for art and they say "Well, let them eat Michael Bay's Transformers 5!"
GetsugaTensho22
GetsugaTensho22 - 5/28/2013, 4:01 PM
This is actually an awesome [frick]ing idea!
It doesn't NEED to be 100 percent Japanese. If you want that you can just watch the original or read the manga. It'd really show the depths of human depravity by showing how people just sold off an entire island. Love it!
exe
exe - 5/28/2013, 4:25 PM
Don't know what the fuzz is about this Akira movie. The anime isn't that good.
JoshBerger
JoshBerger - 5/28/2013, 4:31 PM
[frick] this movie
LucasMend
LucasMend - 5/28/2013, 4:40 PM
I never watched or read Akira, but I really have interest.
Now, for an AMERICAN live-action movie, it's an excellent idea. Nothing has to be 100% like the source material.
DRMidNite
DRMidNite - 5/28/2013, 4:41 PM
They NEED to leave it alone.
austinjohnfry
austinjohnfry - 5/28/2013, 4:42 PM
@fettastic i totally agree with you
PapaEmeritus
PapaEmeritus - 5/28/2013, 5:52 PM
This is a abortion of nature. [frick] that shit.
MCMLXXXII
MCMLXXXII - 5/28/2013, 6:46 PM
i've never seen the anime nor read the manga, though i hear good things.. if being japanese or being in japan is a large part of the theme of the movie or the motivations of the chracters then it has to be true to source.. if not, then i don't see the it being such a problem, it's just an adaptation.. kinda like those modern adaptations of shakespeare plays..
MCMLXXXII
MCMLXXXII - 5/28/2013, 7:06 PM
i guess they wanted to make the story "Whitta".. badumtss!
KnobGoblin
KnobGoblin - 5/28/2013, 7:08 PM
The last act of Chronicle was as close as we'll come to ever seeing this on the big screen.
Bryanferryfan
Bryanferryfan - 5/28/2013, 10:02 PM
As a person of color, I have insisted for years that Hollywood should take the leap and just make a big tent-pole movie like AKIRA and leave the source material alone....cast Japanese actors to do the part and if the script is decent, Americans will see it in droves. A little advertising and being honest to American audiences and they will respond...but they continually underestimate people's intelligence. THOSE BASTARDS ARE BYTCHES!
LaputaHeir
LaputaHeir - 5/28/2013, 10:27 PM
Why go through all that bs? Just keep it in Japan. Or is that too hard to do?
AlexDeLarge87
AlexDeLarge87 - 5/29/2013, 12:53 AM
Makes me sad knowing that this could be so much better. Or could have been.

If you focus on the story with heart and make it look awesome as [frick]. It doesnt matter who stars or what language it is. People will go see it.

Watchmen is a good example (Almost unknown cast. No big stars) or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (International Successs, Won Academy Award).
AlexDeLarge87
AlexDeLarge87 - 5/29/2013, 12:57 AM
Beside if they would have cast Ken Watanabe in the film as the General. That would have draw people in the theaters also. :)
AlexDeLarge87
AlexDeLarge87 - 5/29/2013, 12:59 AM
And the concept of Akira would have made Box office gold.
AlexDeLarge87
AlexDeLarge87 - 5/29/2013, 1:02 AM
Seriously! Vicious Bikergangs riding all over futuristic Tokyo with futuristic Bikes and Beating each others dead with iron pipes. Who dont wanna see that. :)
Ceejay
Ceejay - 5/29/2013, 2:23 AM
Don't try to Americanize something that is quintessentially Japanese, you retards! The original comic for Akira was simply one of the greatest bodies of work for the genre and the Anime was a groundbreaking adaptation that is still unrivaled in its scope and visuals.

If there is ever gonna be an attempt at a live action, then the only people to do it should be the Japanese themselves. not some idiot Hollywood studio with their mundane action film format that regresses everything to the repetitive template of English speaking bad guy vs yankie hero of the day.
JacksonVegaIII
JacksonVegaIII - 5/29/2013, 2:35 AM
I think the ending of Chronicle is the closest thing we're going to get to a decent Akira adaptation.

I do like this guys solution to the neo-tokyo/neo-manhattan problem.... However anything under an R Rated version would be fu.cking pointless. CHRIST I HATE HOLLYWOOD
JacksonVegaIII
JacksonVegaIII - 5/29/2013, 2:36 AM
Also they have to keep the original music the score for the film is fantastic
Kyos
Kyos - 5/29/2013, 5:03 AM
@CaptainJackSpareribs

Anime/manga aren't a genre in itself, there are a large variety of different genres to be found under the mantle of anime/manga.

Also this damn project just has to die. There is no point in making an americanized Akira movie. It'd be better to just take the aspects of source material that seem desirable and make it an Akira inspired original movie.
GUNSMITH
GUNSMITH - 5/29/2013, 6:20 AM
WHY BUY AKIRA TO CHANGE IT?--SMH
Ancar
Ancar - 5/29/2013, 7:01 AM
Shitty project!

"It’s not New Manhattan, it’s still New Tokyo but — this is going to sound weird — it’s actually in Manhattan."

Go frack yourself, man! Do the manga adaptation or bury this shitte!!!
Taboggon
Taboggon - 5/29/2013, 10:04 AM
so they wanted to make it with all the Japanese trimmings and influence, but just didn't want to have a mostly Asian cast..... ok hollywood.
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