According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has tapped Marco Ramirez to pen its long-stewing live-action adaptation of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo’s seminal anime film. Ramirez is known for his work writing for Orange Is The New Black, Da Vinci’s Demons, Sons Of Anarchy, and most recently as co-showrunner for the upcoming second season of Netflix’s Daredevil.
Set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo imperiled by man’s inability to leave science alone, Akira is a pretty apt metaphor for Warner Bros.’ inability to leave live-action adaptations alone. Like MP Nezu’s assessment of Neo-Tokyo, the studio’s floundering project has “become an overripe fruit that’s begun to stink.”
Warner Bros. has been stumbling through the smoking wreckage of this project since 2008, as numerous actors, writers, and directors have been attached, only to flee what is seen as a whitewashed project with a shrinking budget that would no doubt oversimplify an anime that already massively compressed the manga. Of course, those are trifling details that only consume the base multitudes who lack vision. Warner Bros. understands the power that would be available by unlocking Akira. After all, it’s the studio that released adaptations of Battlefield Earth, Jonah Hex, and Wild Wild West. What could possibly go wrong?