BIG RUMOR: Christopher Nolan Wanted For ‘Akira’ Trilogy?

Sep 14, 2015

Take the following with a grain of salt, but according to Den of Geek, Warner Bros. is strongly considering moving forward with their live-action adaptation of the popular manga/anime film Akira. This time with Christopher Nolan rumored to be behind it, and going so far to say it’ll be a trilogy of films.

Here’s what the site is reporting.

We’ve now heard from a source close to Warner Bros. that the studio is planning to make a trilogy of films based on Akira – all the better to do justice to Otomo’s sprawling dystopian sci-fi yarn, perhaps.

Most intriguingly of all, we’re told that Christopher Nolan has met with a previously attached filmmaker (who we can’t name here) within the past three months to talk about the project.

It’s funny, because only a couple of days ago our good friend from Forbes, Mark Hughes wrote a think-piece about the possibility of Nolan making Akira his next project. Akira, having huge franchise potential and needing the world building skills of a high-level director, seemed to be such an expensive venture that the movies would have to be broken-up into three-six films. Along with having the summer blockbuster release date you’d assume it would deserve, like in July.

Nolan’s recent announcement that his next feature would be in July 2017, seemed a bit odd to us, as you’d usually get a bit more information if this was indeed an original project developed by Nolan and his team. Akira is indeed a high-end project at the studio, and could deem a summer date, along with someone like Christopher Nolan spearheading it’s development. I’m sure it would make the studio a lot less nervous than the names previously attached to direct.

The source material is full of high-octane action sequences, along with the kind of science fiction premise I’m sure would be interesting to someone like Nolan. The world building aspect might also be appealing, as it would be his own cinematic universe to build, not unlike what he did with his Dark Knight trilogy.

That said, I’m not 100% convinced this is the case, as the article even suggests it might be just a producing role.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way is still involved and the studio just hired Daredevil‘s Marco J. Ramirez to pen yet another script for the project.

The studio has had at least three different incarnations of this project in development for ages, and took huge heat for when a casting list leaked revealing entirely white-washing the roles, as the source material is very much a Japanese story and moving it’s location from Neo Tokyo to Neo Manhattan angered many fans.

I’m curious if true, would Nolan and the studio be as bold as to move forward with the Americanization of this beloved Japanese sci-fi epic, even after the previous controversy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UhLderbuGI

SOURCE: DEN OF GEEK

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