Since 2002 there have been multiple attempts to adapt Katsuhiro Otomo's manga and subsequent anime,
Akira as a live-action feature film. At various stages, the project had names like George Miller, Christopher Nolan and Jaume Collet-Serra attached, all radically different takes on the material and all of whom eventually left the project due to creative differences with Warner Bros.
The most recent person to undertake this endeavor is
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople writer and director Taika Waititi, who signed on last September. Waititi made it clear from the off that he would keep the ethnicity of the characters intact, a statement that was praised by many following the white-washing of similar properties like
Ghost in the Shell and
Death Note, as well as the previous attempted versions of the adaptation.
Short of this, however, very little has been revealed about his version of the film. In a recent interview with
Dazed, Waititi revealed this is because he's very early in development but he also spoke about adapting the manga, not the anime and just how much the property means to him:
I haven’t really started to get my head around it yet. What I wanted to do was an adaptation of the books, ’cos a lot of people are like, ‘Don’t touch that film!’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not remaking the film, I want to go back to the book.’ A lot of the people freaking out haven’t even read the books, and there are six gigantic books to go through. It’s so rich. But (the anime) Akira is one of my favourite films; my mum took me to see it when I was 13 and it changed my life.
What do you think? Are you glad that Waititi is adapting the manga and not the anime? Do you think he's the right man for the job? What are you looking forward to seeing in the adaptation? Leave your thoughts below.
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