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Director Taika Waititi Confirms He's Still Working on Live-Action Akira


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Saku-dono



Joined: 14 Feb 2014
Posts: 801
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:15 pm Reply with quote
It'll be nice if Waititi would add his unique sense of humor to Akira. I'm super excited to see this even if I have to wait a decade. Hope they can deliver justice to the live version.
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:29 pm Reply with quote
I seemed to recall that someone wanted to do a "live action" movie for Akira. Not sure if I had heard about it decades ago. But Akira is so complex how would ANYONE be able to make a feature film. I mean the anime is a classic and not everything is there. But then again it was Otomo who wrote it, drew it and later directed it in a way that would be able to be handled visual-wise.

If they had thought about doing this a long time ago then no one would've been up against the "whiners" we have today. But hey, there's whiners in every generation and you just can't satisfy everyone. If it can be done, then...lets do it.
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NOGI48



Joined: 14 Feb 2016
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:36 pm Reply with quote
This is 1 movie no one should work on.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:09 pm Reply with quote
Tim Burton claimed he wasn't remaking Willy Wonka and said he was "adapting the book" instead and that remake still turned out bad.
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Gemnist



Joined: 10 Feb 2016
Posts: 1757
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:27 pm Reply with quote
Waititi is a great director, but his style does not belong in Akira. Maybe get a low-budget horror director whose name isn’t Adam Wingard (for his sake, not ours).
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Romuska
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Joined: 02 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:43 pm Reply with quote
How about instead of remaking the movie they take the license for the original movie away from Funimation so they can release the blu-ray with the proper Japanese audio track?
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Sylontack



Joined: 09 Apr 2011
Posts: 193
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:51 pm Reply with quote
Not sure his style would really work well for Akira (of what I've seen from him) but any good artist likely has more than one trick up their sleeve so you never know. If it ever actually goes forward I'd be interested to see how it ends up as I don't really have any attachment to the franchise at current (didn't like the anime film, haven't bothered with the manga).

Cardcaptor Takato wrote:
Tim Burton claimed he wasn't remaking Willy Wonka and said he was "adapting the book" instead and that remake still turned out bad.

To be fair, that's Tim Burton, of course it turned out bad Wink
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Zeino



Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 9:52 pm Reply with quote
It will need to be a trilogy at least if he wants to adapt the full manga. But given how unsuccessful anime-based Hollywood movies are at making sequels...

Sylontack wrote:
To be fair, that's Tim Burton, of course it turned out bad Wink
That's not quite fair. He use to make good films. He just hasn't done that in a long while after Sleepy Hollow.


Last edited by Zeino on Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:02 am; edited 1 time in total
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:06 pm Reply with quote
I don't know where this borderline slanderous knocking on Tim Burton came from, but he has a better track record than Waititi.

For one thing, Waititi's trying to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. He has at least three other films in production - a stop-motion animated film about the life of Michael Jackson from the perspective of his chimpanzee, a film about a Nazi child with an imaginary Jewish friend (in which Waititi himself will play Hitler), and a sequel to What We Do in the Shadows.

With all these projects that have stronger potential than Akira on his plate, I have no doubt in my mind that once again, the live-action Akira will fall by the backburner.
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k_dawg_3484



Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Posts: 58
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:07 pm Reply with quote
Taika Waititi, eh?

Cast Jemaine and Bret as Kaneda and Tetsuo (or vice versa), and I'll buy fifty tickets right now.
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manapear



Joined: 02 May 2014
Posts: 1525
PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:25 pm Reply with quote
It amuses me when people treat Taika's style as if it's only his sense of humor and that he can't manage to very specific and great commentary. Especially political commentary. I honestly think Akira would be great for Taika. I think his brand of humor is great for it, and the kind of topics he tackles are perfect for something like Akira.

It's also very refreshing that he wants to adapt the manga. I love the movie, but I love the manga even more, and some of what was missed from the film kind of stings for me, so I hope more makes it in. (Or at least, is used better than how the film kind of just dumps it.)
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:43 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
I don't know where this borderline slanderous knocking on Tim Burton came from, but he has a better track record than Waititi.
My point was not to knock Tim Burton but to point out the director saying they're adapting the source material and not remaking the previous adaptation is not a guarantee of a quality adaptation.
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PurpleWarrior13



Joined: 05 Sep 2009
Posts: 2025
PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:18 am Reply with quote
I doubt this will ever get made, but I wouldn't mind seeing it happen. Waititi seems to actually "get" the property and material, and the fact that he wants to cast Japanese actors will definitely help it build positive buzz.
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
Posts: 1298
PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:36 am Reply with quote
[quote="Cardcaptor Takato"]
My point was not to knock Tim Burton but to point out the director saying they're adapting the source material and not remaking the previous adaptation is not a guarantee of a quality adaptation.

Case in point: Thor is a pretty poor adaption of the original comics. I don't expect he'd handle Akira any better.

-Stuart Smith
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:52 am Reply with quote
Well, the anime movie was a cult-turned-mainstream classic for anything but its incoherent story, so an adaptation of the manga would be much better in that regard. However as Waititi himself mentions, the manga is 6 volumes long of a continuous story. I just don't see how you can do it any justice in one movie.

Even Lord of Rings had to adapt each book into a 3 hour long movies. And that's the for theatrical version that had content cut for runtime--the extended home video version with the complete content is even longer! First 2 movies about 30 mins longer on home video and last movie was nearly an hour longer for 4 hrs for a single movie!

Given the complex plot of Akira, I think it really needs this kind of treatment to do it any justice.
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