Warner Brothers’ tortuous attempt to bring a remake of Akira to the masses is fast becoming one of the most laboured projects in Hollywood history. The latest announcement reveals that the film has been delayed yet again, with the studio demanding the script receive a bit of a polish.
Akira follows fellow Warner projects The Dark Tower and Paradise Lost into a standstill, as studio execs demand that costs be lowered on those two films before production goes any further.
Producers Jennifer Kiloran Davisson and Andrew Lazar, and director Jaume Collet-Serra have been charged with tweaking the Akira script, but Steve Kloves may yet be called in to do a full re-write, the second time the Harry Potter scribe has been asked to perform such a function.
Another alternative might be for the studio to bring in a completely fresh pair of eyes to perform the necessary script surgery, with The Dark Knight ’s Jonathan Nolan and Green Lantern ’s Michael Green reportedly under consideration.
So there you have it – yet more umming and ah-ing over a project that most fans of the original think is a terrible idea in the first place. Perhaps it’s time Warner put this one out of its misery once and for all…
