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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Any word on Akira?

Brandon Fraley

Brandon Fraley

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Just curious if anyone has heard anything about the live action Akira flick. there was quite a bit of news when they first announced they were doing it, but I don't think I've heard anything since. I also noticed that Ruairi was pretty active here and then kinda fell off the map. Maybe he's knee deep in red leather and mutating cytoplasm? :thumbsup:
 
I loved that movie! This should be so cool, hope that it lives up to the hype.
 
Ruairi has been very quiet on the net. He posts from time to time at c.com, but not often. That could be a good thing if it means he's busy with production, or a bad thing if his project is bogged down. I don't know Akira's current status.

I for one think it's a very risky project. The budget would have to be quite large, and so far, anime live action films have nearly all bombed. Then again, with great risks come great rewards. With a film like this, it's really going to come down to the director, in the same way that Batman Begins and Dark Knight all came down to Nolan. People don't realize just how important the director is to these types of franchise projects. No offense to the guys here who know and work with McG, but this is why I thought McG was a terrible choice for T4. I mean, get somebody with serious talent and a history of serious films in there.

Getting back to Ikira, IMO, there are stronger projects that could translate better from anime/manga to Hollywood. At the very, very top of that list would be a Berserk feature film or series of films. But who knows... if Ruairi really connects with the story, he may be able to pull off something great.
 
I disagree Tom.

This is where it comes down to a great screenplay. Obviously it's the director's job to ensure he has a great screenplay to shoot. Which it didn't sound like McG was ready to do from the get go... but what made Batman Begins special was that it was a great story with great writing and now that T4 has the Dark Knight writing team on board I have little doubt it's going to be great. After all it was Steven Spielberg which shot all of the Indiana Jones movies... and look how hit and miss those were. Or even more applicable the 3 spiderman movies.
 
I agree with Gavin. The screenplay is where it's at. And so far, the rumors surrounding AKIRA do not make for a good prognosis. Tom is right that most films taking anime / manga into live action form have bombed. And rightfully so... Most efforts tend to suffer from poor writing and fail to stay true to their core concepts, often alienating the fan base that drove the films to be made in the first place.

I think AKIRA could do very well if the story remained true to the original and only made appropriate updates to "modernize" the political aspects somewhat. Of course, it was all based on a hypothetical future anyway. Obviously the film will need a decent FX budget and strong performances to carry as well. With a good script and producers who care about the film and its legacy, I think attracting good talent and strong performances shouldn't be too tough.

Story is king, always.
 
I personally think there is little hope that it will be good, but I'm still interested in following it, particularly because Ruairi was such an active member of this community.

I love Akira, but besides some big explosions, there's almost nothing commercial about it. My fear is that the budget that it will require will mean that that studio will push for a summer blockbuster approach that will kill all the subtleties that made the story interesting. I just don't see how it cannot.

The appeal of Akira to me is that it's dealing with concepts too large to be properly communicated. The animated film in large part isn't explained, but deliberately so. The change happening to the characters, the politics and to the city itself are so monumental that it defies understanding. In what world will a corporate studio throw $100,000,000 at that?

Damn, I really wanna watch Akira now :) I gotta go see if I can get it on blu ray!
 
Don't forget that Akira is Manga, comic book from Japan, and I don't think that american/european screenwriter-producer-director can completly understand what Katsuhiro Otomo created. That's why Akira, and mostmanga/anime is so popular on whole world - it is exotic.
When holywood production will give so much money, they will want to change the story and final edit to reach wide audiance=money.
imho it is same b/s as creating Evangelion. Could you imagine Godfather or Thin Red Line as anime?
 
There is no way I am going to doubt Ruairi. He has leapfrogged all of us in terms of getting ahead in the business, and he did it through sheer hard work (almost all of it on his own), and a good business sense. So I can only say I did not care the anime version of Akira. If he does pull this off, it would be a huge win.

Regarding Driector vs Screenplay, keep in mind that Nolan wrote or co-wrote those Batman screenplays, so I think my point is 100% valid that these big franchise pictures really, really come down to the director. The director is absolutely key. Which is why I have little hope for T4 being as great as it could be. It's the director who decides whether the script is good enough to shoot.

btw, after suggesting Berserk as a live action film, I've spent the last couple days doing nothing but dreaming up exactly how that would actually work on screen. Now if I just had the same industry juice as Ruairi.... :)
 
I liked 50% Grey, but I didn't like Silent city. I think Akira is too complex to get it on screen as motion picture, especially for hollywood money with executives behind back.
As goes for directors, even the strongest one have their ups and downs, Ford Coppola with "Jack", Spielberg with everything after "Schindler's list".
 
The writer is Gary Whitta, who wrote the original spec Book of Eli (now being filmed on RED) and who I also have a tremendous amount of admiration for. Not only am I going to give Ruairi the benefit of the doubt, but I'd really like to see him succeed. He worked hard and I always like to see hard work rewarded. I don't think I've seen a short on par visually with Silent City. This has been discussed ad nauseum, but I think it achieved it's goal, which was to function as a visual calling card. Also, I just watched Akira the other day, and there is room for improvement. I won't let nostalgia affect my judgement, as sometimes hardcore fans do. The dialog is dated, overtly anime and certainly wouldn't "work" for a film-going audience. Elements/themes of the story, concept, and the animation, of course, are fantastic. I think we also have to consider that although anime-to-film hasn't always worked in the past, those pics weren't being produced by Appian Way and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. His name will warrant the type of budget it will take to pull Akira off. So... I'm hopeful. Whew. Sorry, three cups of coffee this morning.
 
As long as he breaks the long-running curse of horrid cartoon-to-live-action, anime-to-live-action and video-game-to-life-action I'm game.

How can you mess something like Resident Evil up?
 
liquidigital said:
those pics weren't being produced by Appian Way and starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Click to expand...

whoa whoa whoa, STARRING Leo DiCaprio? I knew he was producing, but is it confirmed he's staring in it? as who? he's too old for any of the gang. I remember hearing somewhere Joseph gordon levitt as Tetsuo, which I think is actually a really interesting choice, not sold on it, but I'm super curious how he'd come off with that dark intensity.
 
Not confirmed Leo is starring- my mistake. But I think levitt would be a great tetsuo. Hope it all works out
 
liquidigital said:
But I think levitt would be a great tetsuo. Hope it all works out
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I know, right? :) I'm really curious how he'd do. I actually really like leo as well, I just can't imagine which role he'd be appropriate for.
 
Tom, I think berserk is AMAZING. I'm a huge admirer. But, i have a hard time seeing it translated to a feature film. So much of it is the tone and style which I think a lot would be lost in the translation. Fantasy has been the toughest to full off out of any genre I think. It's just really hard for most people to relate to. I think Akira, being sci fi has a better chance, but the scope is just too big and conceptual that what made the anime good would also be lost. Some things just work better in one medium than another. Of course, I could be wrong and just lack the required imagination.
 
opcode said:
Tom, I think berserk is AMAZING. I'm a huge admirer. But, i have a hard time seeing it translated to a feature film. So much of it is the tone and style which I think a lot would be lost in the translation. Fantasy has been the toughest to full off out of any genre I think. It's just really hard for most people to relate to. I think Akira, being sci fi has a better chance, but the scope is just too big and conceptual that what made the anime good would also be lost. Some things just work better in one medium than another. Of course, I could be wrong and just lack the required imagination.
Click to expand...

No, I mean, I totally understand what you are saying. Ever since I posted that the other day, I have been thinking about how it COULD actually be done. Like you say, it would be very, very difficult to get the atmosphere right, but I do think it could done, and done amazingly! The toughest casting would be Guts himself. Griffith and Caska would be fairly easy, and the monsters would be CGI. Maybe some of the big armor-clad bosses would be CGI too.

One thing I love about the anime is that about half the series takes place at night, under blue, star-filled skies. That would have to be done on a soundstage. Instead of greenscreen and comping, maybe use a fixed sky, like David did with Manure. Night skies are one of the most difficult things for Hollywood to pull off.

Much of the atmosphere of the film would have to be computer generated. There has a be a big separation from reality. You wouldn't want it to come out like some low-rent "Beastmaster" from the 80s, shot in some run-down castles in Eastern Europe or whatever. :biggrin:
 
Beastmaster rocked the shit. The movie that put ferrets on the map. I think every kid had ferret fever after this movie. So no Leo for Kaneda? Too old now, maybe?
 
haha... yeah.. as a kid, i used to love that movie.
 
What do you mean no anime has translated well? I loved Speed Racer! Hated the look-- but was able to overlook it because I thought it was a genuinely great movie.
 
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