Akira
The roller coaster ride that is the live action adaptation of Akira continues on as there’s so many ups and downs with it when it comes to just who is attached as director alone, never mind what the actual production will be like. A few new clues have surfaced as Non-Stop director Jaume Collet-Serra is out doing press ahead of that Liam Neeson film and a few questions came his way regarding his adaptation of Akira, which looks like it’s still moving forward in some form:
CS: That’s great that you’re sticking with it despite the bumps in the road.
Collet-Serra: It’s great that they’re waiting for me. It’s different, because you have to be respectful of the source material. Otomo adapted his own work from a manga into an anime and both things are completely different and genius. The only way to do a live version of “Akira” is to take the spirit and adapt it. It will be as different as the anime was from the manga.
CS: What worries myself and a lot of the other fans of the property is you have elements that are commercial and sexy, like the motorbikes or the jaw-dropping futuristic backdrop, but for the most part it’s a very cerebral work. How do you maintain the essence of that without diluting it into essentially “Blade Runner: Mark 2″?
Collet-Serra: I think you cannot make a movie about “Akira” and hope that everyone understands it. Like everything else, you have to make three or four movies in one where there’s the essence somewhere. If you’re a fan, you already know what it’s about and you’ll see it’s part of the same world, but trying to oversimplify it would be a mistake. I think if at some point a character tries to explain it to the audience at the end of the second act, that’s a problem. It’s more like an existential opera. It’s something that can only be explained in the manga, and even in the anime it’s hard to follow.
Check out more of the interview here.
