A celebrated anime adaptation was released in the late 1980s, but for years Warner Bros. has been trying to make a live action version of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo's timeless manga classic. Akira fans eagerly awaiting a live-action adaptation have watched Warner Bros. delay the project time after time due to script, budget, and casting issues. Now the fans have taken Akira into their own hands, as an impressive live action fan-made trailer coined as The Akira Project has just been released.
Borne from an Indiegogo campaign, this fan-made trailer (directed and produced by Nguyen-Anh Nguyen) was filmed and perfected in post-production by a group known as The Akira Project:
"The Akira Project is a crowd-sourced, non-profit project meant to create a live action fan trailer of AKIRA, the renowned manga-turned-anime film from the late 1980′s; a stunning example of both mediums as art forms. While Hollywood has been working on a live-action Akira movie for a few years now, we, as fans, wanted to take a shot at making our own adaptation. A chance to stick as close to the source material as possible. A chance to do Akira Justice.
We launched an Indiegogo campaign in July 2012 as part of a crowd sourcing effort to make this project come to life. Many people contributed not just financially but offered their time and talent to help the production that was shot in Montreal, Quebec from November 2-5th 2012. What started out as a simple idea between two guys having a beer (Hey! It'd be cool to see Kaneda ride his bike around Neo-Tokyo!), became a global endeavour, filled with adventures and hurdles, involving more than 40 artists in 12 different countries.
After a year and a half in post-production, we are proud to present the project to Akira fans the world over. We hope to have done justice to the timeless work of Katsuhiro Otomo and look forward to, someday, seeing the full scope of the Akira story translated to the big screen as a live-action."
There's no recent updates on a live-action Warner Bros. Akira adaptation, but it was last reported that Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop) would direct, with pre-production likely set for spring of 2014. Perhaps this live-action trailer will kick things into gear and convince them to stay faithful to the source material. We'll keep Daily Dead readers updated on further news as it develops.
For more information on The Akira Project, visit:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
