Akira Movie = Doomed?

Man, things do not look good for your movie if you can’t convince a has-been like Keanu Reeves to star in it. And now “due to amicable creative difference” the Akira live action movie is now losing it’s director Albert Hughes, who helmed movies such as The Book of Eli and From Hell. Here is the studios plan on finding a new director and actors for the two lead characters of Tetsuo and Kaneda according to Deadline:

As for Akira, the intention of the studio is to keep the picture on a fast track, which means they will find a director quickly. The studio has been wrestling with the approach on the film for the past year. Last March, Warner Bros put together a short list of up-and-coming actors after getting a strong rewrite by Steve Kloves that set the film in a rebuilt New Manhattan, where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. At the time, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy were given the script for the role of Tetsuo, and Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix were courted for Kaneda. The two leads were expected to come from that group of actors. Then, the studio had a change of heart and, given the budget, wanted to have an established box office star in the movie. That led to a flirtation with Keanu Reeves that ended recently.

Warner Bros is back to the other plan, and will likely go back to that list of actors in hopes of making the picture later this year or early next.

I hope that when they say “find a director quickly” doesn’t mean they just hand the movie off to any hack with a directing resume’ that may come along. To me this movie could go either way right now, they may produce a total piece of garbage based on quick they are trying to get it moving or it will be an okay movie. I really wish they could have held onto Albert Hughes as a director because he did so well in a futuristic world with Book of Eli. But on the other hand I’m certainly glad they didn’t pick up Keanu because that would have been a catastrophe, especially when they have a pretty good group of young talent to choose from to fill both the Tetsuo and Kaneda roles.

I wasn’t thrilled with the way things were shaping up with the Akira movie before, but I’m of the mind set that if they’re going to make it then they at least need to not make a total joke of the story that it is derived from. And also if everything falls through and it ends up going back into development hell or not being made at all you won’t see me shedding a tear.

So let’s hear it in the comment section below from all you Keanu lovers about how he would have made the best Kaneda ever!