Logo handmade by Bannister
Column by Scott Green
Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has hired Harry Potter adapter Steve Kloves to pen a new draft of the script for the Albert Hughes directed adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira.
Variety notes that the latest version of the script was by Albert Torres, with earlier drafts from Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and Gary Whitta.
On the unconfirmed side of matters, the latest iteration of Akira casting rumors is that James Franco is in talks to play lead Shotaro Kaneda.
In Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo presented a vision of Tokyo destroyed by war, rebuilt, and now ready to explode under the pressure of its internal strife. The movie's clashing biker gangs and heady psychic visions became an early testament to the violent, mature side of anime when the film was brought to North America in 1989.
The anime movie is currently available in North America on Blu-ray via Bandai. The manga, which was started before and finished after the anime, is available through Kodansha - volume 5 of the release is expected to be released on March 1. The first volume of that new Kodansha release of the manga is reviewed here.
