Akira Live-Action Film Allegedly Dead

According to movie news site Bloody Disgusting, the Leonardo DiCaprio backed live-action production of Akira is “dead as a doornail” with former director Ruairi Robinson having left the project at an unspecified point and time according to separate sources.

The film adaptation was to move the action to “New Manhattan,” a city rebuilt by Japanese money and was to hit theaters this summer provided the script was done in 2008, which never materialized due to the WGA strike as well as the lack of any discernible cast attachments.

“Akira” would have marked the feature directorial debut for Robinson who was nominated for a best animated short Oscar in 2001 for a sci-fi comedy called “Fifty Percent Grey.” He also wrote and directed a sci-fi short titled “The Silent City”.

After the abject commercial bomb that was WATCHMEN, Warner Bros. may have gotten cold feet about taking another massive risk on another story with similar scale where the characters require massive amounts of exposition and backstory to properly frame the film for general audiences, something which the aforementioned film failed to do effectively according to Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes reviews.