Long thought to be far too expensive a film to ever truly convert in live action, the epic and milestone-of-cinema Akira now has a producer to bring it to life. And that producer is Leonardo DiCaprio, who is also appearantly lining himself up to play this version’s role of leading character, Kaneda. Also, the role of Akira is set to be filled by Joseph Gordon Levitt (Brick, The Lookout).
On top of this, it is set to be made as two back-to-back movies, with an estimated cost of $200 million each, and DiCaprio has July 2010 as his release date. And even more news, it is set to be directed by the very talented and very Irish, Ruairi Robinson. This certainly marks a big step up in for him, from 2001 short Fifty Percent Grey, and 2006 short The Silent City. Its appearantly this last short, a sci-fi war movie told in 5 minutes, that got the attention of DiCaprio.
So there you have it.
4 responses so far ↓
Conqueror P // February 24, 2008 at 11:51 am
I think it’s really cool that an Irish director is getting the opportunity to make a big movie and especially just off the back of a short ( Silent City -which was really good but not great plot wise- visually though. Wow!)
Gives hope for the rest of us.
“The Fall” « 100footcroc // April 17, 2008 at 6:27 pm
[...] I’m a big fan of a movie that presents such a spectacular visual world, but if the story is gibberish it kind of falls apart. Casshern, with its trippy blend of 2D and 3D graphics and it’s weird art direction (big Lenin-esque statues with gears for arms, robot armies that look like they marched out of the old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons) looked spectacular, but after for the first forty minutes the story disintegrated into Japanese people screaming threats at each other and giant CG machines exploding. This may not be the film’s fault, though. Wikipedia informs me that the US version of Casshern is 24 minutes shorter than the original and features horrifically bungled subtitles. Oh well, it wasn’t the first time a stateside production company screwed up a foreign franchise, and it won’t be the last. [...]
Kazuki Watanabe // July 24, 2008 at 2:40 am
These remakes are shit news in my opinion..
The Americans always do a half-assed job in remaking the original movies.
Even though you might not be a huge fan of the originals, the expected remake of AKIRA has a totally different setting and different cast.. it doesn’t make any sense, and, frankly, ruins the entire point of the remake.
The CASSHERN remake is also pointless in the sense that the original is only a few years old, and consists of top-notch digital animation, 3D effects, perfect score of music, and absolutely flawless acting.
So, what’s the point of the remake? honestly.
arigato // July 31, 2008 at 2:38 pm
fuck art lets kill