Like I said in a previous post, I've just discovered Akira. And I thought, "We're lucky Hollywood hasn't tried a live-action adaption,". Then I read this-
Variety is reporting that Warner Brothers Pictures is set to shoot a live action remake of the anime blockbuster AKIRA. Stephen Norrington and James Robinson, both fresh from THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN , are currently developing the project.
Katsuhiro Otomo's AKIRA , a dystopian biker-gang yarn of the near future, was originally released in 1988, and was based on his comic book of the same name. Groundbreaking in both Japan and the United States, it helped define anime as a genre in the international marketplace.
Sorry to change topic, but what's this 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' thing you mention. In the UK we've got a series called 'The League of Gentlemen', which consists of mainly three men playing every character in a messed up inbred town in the midlands. It's one of the funniest (and also darkest and sickest) comedies I've ever seen, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone willing.
Pete
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is an acclaimed comic series in which several literary characters including Alan Quatermass and Tom Sawyer are commisioned to defend the world and they base their operations out of a submarine. The only (very cool!) casting I can remember is Sean Freakin' Connery as Quatermass.
And I have seen the League Of Gentlemen in the U.S. on Comedy Central and BBC America. Very twisted.
Oh my! Norrington is a really awful film director. The horrible aesthetics from the first "Blade" and absolutely everything from "Death machine" should be enough to prove it. Something is seriously wrong when good directors have trouble finding good projects and morons like this one get the best ones. Damn Hollywood!
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Minor nitpick- Tom Sawyer doesn't actually appear in the comics; he was put in the movie in an apparent effort to make it more appealing to American audiences.
As for the topic at hand (live-action Akira), I think this comment I read on filmforce.ign.com sums it up perfectly: "Isn't one of the things that makes Japanese animation so good the mere fact that it's not Hollywood?"
**sniff, sniff** I liked Blade...
Akira is among the only anime I enjoy. Now I shall REALLY kill Warner Bros.