Anyone with reservations about The Hughes Brothers' upcoming Akira might take some comfort from the fact that great efforts are being made to crack the script before the project goes before the cameras. Following drafts by Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, Iron Man), Gary Whitta (The Walking Dead, The Book of Eli) and Albert Torres (Henry Poole is Here), the latest writer to dive into Katsuhiro Otomo's colossal manga is Steve Kloves.
Kloves previously adapted Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and is one of two credited screenwriters on something called The Amazing Spider-Man, but he's probably best known for having beaten every single Harry Potter novel (apart from The Order of the Phoenix) into movie shape. While mention of Harry Potter and Akira in the same sentence might initially cause a sharp intake of breath, Kloves' presence here makes a lot of sense: he's a writer known to Akira studio Warner Bros to be able to carve strong screenplays out of long novels. And crucially, on the whole, the results have tended not to alienate the existing fanbase.
Long in development hell, the Hollywood Akira is coming together at Warners via Leonardo Dicaprio's Appian Way production company, with Albert and Allen Hughes chosen to helm the massive undertaking (two films shot back-to-back at an estimated budget of $300m) following The Book of Eli last year. The plan thus far seems to be to transpose Katsuhiro Otomo's Neo Tokyo to New Manhattan. Recent rumours - probably nonsense, but they got the interweb buzzing - linked Zac Efron to the role of protagonist Kaneda, and Morgan Freeman to the Colonel.
Shooting is pencilled in for the summer, pending that workable screenplay and a cast. Warners haven't yet committed to a release date.