Comments on: Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Star in Live Action Akira Remake?

By: Live Action Ninja Scroll Coming from DiCaprio Not Wachowskis - Film Junk

Live Action Ninja Scroll Coming from DiCaprio Not Wachowskis - Film Junk — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:10:42 +0000

[...] himself to be right in the middle of it all. It was previously announced that he will be producing and possibly starring in a live action adaptation of Akira, and now this week it has been revealed that his Appian Way production company is also undertaking [...]

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:15:57 +0000

Why are white people being cast for the roles of japanese characters? This is ridiculous!

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:58:32 +0000

Hey Ryan, I think the bottom line is that they need a star to sell the film, and there aren’t many Japanese actors that are big enough names to carry it. It may seem wrong to hardcore fans, but it’s just business.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:44:12 +0000

I’m new to filmjunk and I wanted to e-mail to rant about this project (which may be the worst adaptation idea ever). The #1 problem here is setting. New Manhattan? How can Leo be Kaneda? He’s a fucking american. What will his name be…Ken? The anime and manga is original for many reasons including the fact that the characters actually look japanese. Any other manga/anime would be fair game other than this one. The casting would alienate the installed fanbase right off the bat.

I’ll go see it considering the fact that I believe AKIRA is the best animated film of all time, but I’ll buy tickets for something else and sneak in. I don’t want to see this bastardization do well at the box office.

By: lacey

lacey — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:53:51 +0000

ughh where to begin?

when i first heard that akira was being made into a live-action film i was ecstatic…until i heard the words “starring leonardo dicaprio” …….. are you serious? i dont doubt his acting skills, he frickin killed in some of his later movies, but the fact is that i just cant imagine him playing kaneda. JGL as tetsuo was a good call, but i still have to say that this movie would be better off starring japanese actors who can actually pronounce the names. good luck to dicaprio on this movie, i hope another story isnt slaughtered by a crappy live-action film… its gonna be hard to follow the manga and anime, both of which were pretty awesome.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:31:01 +0000

I’m excited about Levitt. This will be an interesting experiment but I hope doing live action anime shows doesn’t become too big. I guess it will all depend on how well DBZ does.

By: Rian

Rian — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:48:52 +0000

In my opinion Akira already exists in the perfect format for the material in comic book form. There’s no denying that the Anime is incredible (and it is indeed one of my favorite animated films of all time), but it left so much of the great story from the comics out in order to achieve a “normal” running time.

As the story of Akira has already been told successfully in two separate mediums, it seems to me that it will be difficult for the live-action filmmakers to strike gold for the third time with this property. However, JGL is probably as close to perfect casting as you can get for the role of Tetsuo, and DiCaprio has proven to me in recent years that he’s capable of pulling off just about any character that he can think of. Aside from Leo’s hair color, I love both of these casting choices.

Unfortunately, I’m not so excited about the director who, if I have my facts straight, has only ever directed commercials and animated short films, or the fact that the movie is supposedly being planned to take place in New York instead of Tokyo. I like the two-part approach as it will hopefully allow for this incarnation of the story to stick closer to the source material than the anime did, but until I see some footage I shall remain skeptical.

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:37:35 +0000

@”I canâ€™t think of anyone whose status hasnâ€™t improved after working with Scorsese.”

well, there’s Jesus.

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:50:24 +0000

I can’t say this desperately interests me, but since I’ll see just about anything with Leo in it, I’ll be seeing it.

And I agree with Rusty James that working with Scorsese will go a long way towards shedding any kind of shiny teeny-bopper image you might have had in your youth. I can’t think of anyone whose status hasn’t improved after working with Scorsese.

By: 7 Stories » Big Screen Little Screen

7 Stories » Big Screen Little Screen — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:25:14 +0000

[...] – Leonarado DiCaprio is producing a live-action adaptation of long-time cult anime favorite, Akira, said to star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The Wachowski Brothers would be the first candidates coming to mind to take this one on, but reports are that Irish director Ruairi Robinson will take the helm for what could be a two-movie project. (Film Junk) [...]

By: Rusty James

Rusty James — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:42:57 +0000

JGL as Tetsuo is fantastic but I always like to hear that guy being cast in movies. So far he’s got a good track record for picking projects (except for GI JOE supposedly).

I think people stopped associating Dicaprio with his teen heart throb days. He’s made three Scorcese films, I think we can assume he’s graduated to legitimate actor status. Growing Pains was a long time ago.