Director Justin Lin has been a busy bee lately as he helped turn the Fast and Furious franchise into a massive billion dollar success. He replaced J.J. Abrams as the director on Star Trek Beyond and Justin is now attached to direct Space Jam 2 for Warner Bros.
Meet The Movie Press has a rumor that WB wants Justin for another action franchise, as they’re currently eyeing him to direct Akira, which recently got a new script Daredevil and Defenders showrunner Marco Ramirez.
Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra had been attached for years, but it had looked like he was clearly not sticking around, as multiple incarnations of the project have seen different writers and directors come and go.
Another huge thing focused on the project was the white-washing of both the story and it’s characters, the intensely Japanese story was moved to the United States and all the Asian parts we’re going out to mostly white actors. Hiring an Asian director like Lin, sort of gives the impression WB wants audiences to be onboard on this massively expensive project and having Asian leads is very important to fans. It would be considered less “risky” to have such a successful director tackling the project where you can hire an Asian cast.
Lin’s first directing gigs was Better Luck Tomorrow, which starred a mostly Asian cast with Star Trek‘s Jon Cho and Furious actor Sung Kang.
Akira is very sci-fi action heavy with motorcycle gangs and the military, so having someone involved with directing a fun/successful Fast and Furious film and Star Trek is a good sign for it actually getting made.
SOURCE: MEET THE MOVIE PRESS