translated from Spanish: Why Warner decided to kill Taika Waititi’s “Akira”

Experience tells us that the live action and “Westernized” adaptations of manga and animé don’t end well after going through the greedy hands of Hollywood. It’s enough to take a look at Rupert Sanders’ failed “Ghost in the Shell: The Keeper of the Future” (Ghost in the Shell, 2017), or the even more embarrassing “Death Note” (2017) by Adam Wingard. When negotiations began on the reversal of “Akira,” Katsuhiro Otomo’s post-apocalyptic work, we began to worry. The idea of transforming this classic Japanese animated manga and film into a bastard version of flesh and blood, has been around for a long time and with several names involved. There were even strange rumors implicating Christopher Nolan, long before deciding on “Dunkirk” (Dunkirk, 2017). The truth is that the remake of “Akira” had two attempts to take off well marked: on the one hand in 2012 by the Spaniard Jaume Collet-Serra, responsible for things like “La Orphana” (Orphan, 2009) and the future “Jungle Jungle” (2020) and “Black Adam” , both starring Dwayne Johnson.

Taika makes mutis for Akira forum

Between budget problems and a lot of lack of conviction, Warner Bros. decided to turn back and Collet-Serra set off for other projects; but things were revived in 2018 when Taika Waititi approached to try to bring the story of Kaneda and Tetsuo to fruition. The New Zealand filmmaker came from breaking it with “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017) and returned to his strange independent products with “Jojo Rabbit” (2019). Once the production of this war dramamedia was finished, he was ready to get to work with the adaptation of Otomo, whose premiere was scheduled for May 21, 2021.We were because, once again, the film just fell into the cinematic limbo , that place where projects that are postponed almost indefinitely go to stop. We do not know very well (yet) the details of the final cancellation, but on the eve of starting the pre-production of the film, WB was had breakfast with the confirmation of “Thor 4” by Waititi himself.

Year 2019 according to Katsuhiro Otomo, ups

Since no one can be in two places at the same time, it was obvious that Taika was moving away from a company that was months away from putting first, and although the producer remains hopeful that it will return to the ring after the Marvel sequel, for many this is a clear indication of what and relations were not so oiled between the two sides. Apparently, Waititi was already on the lookout for the young Japanese protagonists to occupy the two main roles. The studio had already delayed production to give it the time and not to rush things, but now it fell into a stand-by almost decisive, what’s “Akira” about? History transports us to the Neo-Tokyo of 2019 (ja), a decadent city rebuilt on the ashes of World War III, where a repressive government, among other things, experiments with a group of little ones and their mental powers. The young leader of a gang of motorists must dodge anti-government agitators, corrupt politicians, irresponsible scientists and bad military vibes in order to save his friend before he destroys everything with his ego and psychic abilities. We will not deny that a little bit we are glad of this new failed attempt because, deep down, we know that these adaptations do not always meet our expectations. In this note:

Original source in Spanish