Forum - View topicINTEREST: Director Jordan Peele Reflects on the Live-Action Akira That Never Was
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ZelosZoidberg
 Posts: 636 |
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Wasn't there an OVA/TV show that would adapt the manga in the works or did I just dream that up? Anyway...
Main problem with a live action Akira movie imo is that the suits would get involved and change things that would dilute it's story and culture to be more mainstream which is a terrible idea. And considering the absurd budget needed to bring the vision, you are taking huge, huge risk that would most likely put WB's other foot in the grave. |
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onpufan
 Posts: 123 |
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You can say that about every live-action adaption. But sometimes it works like superhero films and Transformers films where they find success despite not being good representations of their source material or even good films in general. |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5317 |
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I agree with him on the all-Japanese cast. If it's set in a fantasy world then having an America cast is fine, and even some titles set in Japan can change location, but Tokyo is such an important part of the plot it wouldn't make sense having it with none Japanese actors.
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M.O.D.U.S.
Posts: 5 |
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An all-Japanese cast is a pipe dream for any kind of project out of Hollywood. It would also break a number of labor laws and diversity rules that would just be bad news.
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dmanatunga
Posts: 53 |
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There is supposedly a TV show in the works. Whether it comes to fruition, no idea. |
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MrTerrorist
Posts: 1348 |
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At least Jordan got to do a Akira shout out by having the famous bike slide in his last movie, NOPE.
The scene in question. https://youtube.com/shorts/hHOwQeLH7Ck? |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11352 |
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As soon as I read "set in the rebuilt New Manhattan" I went nope, get out.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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I see what you did there. |
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Gemnist
Posts: 1757 |
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Not exactly the best examples since most superhero films are fairly accurate, and the Transformers movies are despised and have always coasted on the IP over anything. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 5920 |
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Even this is a weird take since not all Transformers products have stood the test time compared to the original 1987 series and Beast Wars. And when you have shit like the Fast & Furious franchise which started off as a humble and rather generic crime-drama series whose sequels in another reality were relegated to being straight to DVD/streaming fodder. |
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ScruffyKiwi
 Posts: 675 Location: New Zealand |
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Ummm why? Are you suggesting you can’t cast someone of the same ethnicity as the character being played? |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4371 Location: New York |
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Sounds like we dodged a bullet.
Honestly the only way to do Akira as a LA film, if you must, would be to film it in Japan with a Japanese cast while providing foreign money to the studio. |
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jdnation
Posts: 1998 |
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I recall that SUNRISE and Otomo are already adapting the entire manga into a new anime trilogy. After his next project, Orbital Frame.
Hollywood will never do this right. It could still work even with an American-fictional-setting and diverse cast. One idea was that following WWIII, L.A. or wherever was rebuilt with Chinese/Japanese money and mass immigration and aesthetics. But the story overall is not going to sit comfortably with the suits. The film would need a budget on par with Avatar and need to make avatar money, and even Cameron knows he needs to keep things as cookie-cutter to bring in the money. Akira ain't that. Just let Oromo do his thing as anime. We don't need live-action, as manga/anime grow in popularity while the Hollywood machine declines. |
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Allison Addams
 Posts: 120 |
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While I agree that Akira should just be left alone, I feel if it did happen then a good starting point would be to recognize the DNA in Akira's thematic points that the western world shares and be relevant. Because despite being a very Japanese story, it still totally has that. No one wants a whitewashed Akira, but whitewashing and Americanizing don't have to mean the same thing. Like neighborhoods turned into dystopian war zones due to poverty and neglect. Which are abusively patrolled by overly militarized police forces. Ones that are in conflict with violent youth gangs that have filled the vacuum for these youths as family because their families were destroyed in large part by said poverty, neglect, and over policing. Also vulnerable children being lost to the system and no one knows what's happening to them. This is all in Akira, and unfortunately, this all exist in the U.S. So just as a hypothetical here if it were up to me, I feel that's a solid launchpad for a western Akira adaptation. You just need to seriously think about the history behind that for the future you're creating and what that says about the present that precedes it. But I'm not going go into any deep thought about how that would work, that's not my job. I was just humoring the idea that IF a western Akira was going to happen and no one could stop it, there is a WAY to go about adapting even this property. But again like I said, I think Akira is best left alone. |
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