All hope seemed lost for the live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's epoch-making anime Akira. But Collider are quoting a "trusted source" that tells them not only is the project still alive, but Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, who adapted Children of Men so succesfully, are hard at work on the script.
The project was originally mooted at Sony in the 1990s, but was revived more recently by Warner Bros. with names like Stephen Norrington, Jon Peters, Ruairi Robinson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gary Whitta and Andrew Lazar all attached at various points in one capacity or another.
It's due to relocate the story from neo-Tokyo to Manhattan (neo-Manhattan?) and initial reports suggested two films, but it's such a colossally expensive proposal (some estimates put it north of $300m) that Warners will want to be very sure of their investment before work starts in earnest.
Things had gone ominously quiet of late, but Collider's man is confident that the movie is still very much a priority for the studio, and could go before cameras next year, for a 2011 release. Fingers crossed then, but we'll believe it when we see it.