The American Akira Has a Director (Two of ‘Em)
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?After floundering in development hell for years, the long-awaited, long-threatened American version of Akira has taken a big step to actually happening. The Hughes brothers are currently in talks with Warner Bros. to direct the adaptation of the manga classic based on the success of their recent post-apocalyptic semi-hit The Book of Eli (it probably doesn’t hurt that Warner and the Hughes have the whole “brothers” thing in common, either). Nothing’s been signed yet, though, but since this is the first time Akira has popped up in the Hollywood news in over a year (or so it seems) I figured it was worth mentioning.
Now, the last movie the Hughes brothers directed before Eli was From Hell, based on the Alan Moore graphic novel, back in 2001. I thought the movie was okay, but I’m told as an adaptation it was horrible. This does not bode particularly well for Akira fans, but I doubt anyone’s that surprised by this, right? I’m pretty sure this is the best we could ever hope for from an American Akira — a travesty of an adaptation, but a serviceable movie, because there was never any way we were going to get a good adaptation. So… yay? (Via Deadline)
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.