Forum - View topicNEWS: Warner, Leonardo DiCaprio to Produce Live-Action Akira
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Sam Murai
 Posts: 1051 |
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...As one would expect from any popular genre piece being remade in another medium... Personally, I'm very excited to see how this film will turn out. DiCaprio is no slouch of a talent and he seems to carefully pick the roles and movies he appears in, so hopefully that kind of eye will lead him to produce a competant and faithful adaptation of Otomo's manga classic. He doesn't seem to be the type that would make or appear in a film for the gee-whiz, slam-bang potential it may have, but rather for the artistic merit or the message it may send, as opposed to others (not limited to anime). At the very least, it's good to see these live-action anime adaptations being done by the hands of fans who seem to understand the stories being done and who also have some sembalance of talent, as well (Wachovski(sp) Bros. on Speed Racer, Tobey Maguire on Robotech--even if I'm not necessarily supportive of it). |
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ultrapostman
 Posts: 164 Location: New Jersey. Don't you just love traffic circles? |
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I'm more surprised that no one made a Little Kuriboh reference. .........in america. |
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artgeek707
Posts: 12 |
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that's interesting. Makes me think of the Monster live action film supposedly coming out in 2009 as well
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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Because it's completely xenophobic and frankly speaking, it's pointless to a certain degree. Why have a movie about 1984 when you rename parts of Oceania to England and other assocaiated modern day countries because thats where parts of the story takes place? Or for that matter, why have inheritable Traditional Arabian Themes like Sheiks and Harems be set in a Futuristic World without context in someway? Heck, at least Kayne West wasn't afraid to give Akira some decent respect in his song. They could've used a made-up name or even not mention it altogether. |
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Andrew Cunningham
 Posts: 479 Location: Seattle |
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No, commercially successful means the movie is a hit. All of these were. By your definition, Juno is not commercially successful because it had an opening weekend of $525,155. Even though it has now earned $117 million. The Sixth Sense is not commercially successful because it only opened to $26 million, even though it eventually made $293 million. I'm not even going to address what creative bookkeeping a movie with a clear $50 million dollar profit ratio (minus many finer points of Hollywood bookkeeping, I'm sure) before DVD is somehow a problem. By that kind of standard, nothing with a budget bigger than Juno's would ever be worth making. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15434 |
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Andrew: Juno and the Sixth Sense were cheap. Leo's movies are expensive.
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Atropine
 Posts: 6 |
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I couldn't believe it when I saw this headline, I think this project definitely has some potential to be awesome.
Though I don't get how changing the setting of the story is "taking liberties" or changing the story. It takes place in a neo-urban area, and considering the companies involved are in the U.S. and are adapting it for a U.S. audience, it makes sense for them to change the setting to the U.S. Even if they change place and character names, the story itself could go untouched. It won't, they never do, but I'm just saying we don't know what'd going on story-wise yet. All those changes are made for tons of reason, the main two being 1) increased general accessibility to the plot for people unfamiliar with the source material and 2) time and budget constraints in the movie. Aren't some anime fans always going on about how the industry's suffering because not enough people are interested? Wouldn't making the movies completely true to the source material qualify as one of those niche-market offerings that only cater to those who are already into the fandom? |
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GATSU
Posts: 15434 |
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Atropine: Watering down the source material does not increase interest in the genre. Just ask how many people have read AHOV or V for Vendetta since those bastardizations got made.
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subaru
Posts: 120 Location: Australia |
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I dont think they will rename "Akira"...........afterall it is one of the more well known anime titles in western countries....... even to non-anime fans. They can always say the genetic project is originated in Japan or something 
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Hon'ya-chan
Posts: 973 |
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Or for that matter, those that read Beowulf or the Iliad. "Waitaminute, where the [expletive] hell is the part where Rosario Dawson shows her tits?!?!" |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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V for Vendetta re-entered the graphic novel sales charts for like a month or two surrounding the release of the film. Yes it pretty much always does increase general interest, usually because there's a hundred-million dollar marketing campaign aggressively mentioning the title of the film so people see the book/animated version on the shelf and say "huh Akira I've heard of this" and they check it out. Marketing for Dummies itt |
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testorschoice
Posts: 468 |
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Amazing, he moved the goalposts again! Five acts of back-pedaling in less than 3 hours. This is a debating goalpost-mover in rare form. Not rare enough, sadly.
Graphic novels are a medium, not a genre. And yes, more people did read both since those movies got made. That's why Vertigo reprinted both graphic novels during the release of the movies and since then. |
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Atropine
Posts: 6 |
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I'll ask if you can actually provide the numbers.
I dunno about everyone else, but generally when I find that a movie I've enjoyed was based on a book, I go and check out the book. The marketing works on me, I guess. Not that it's related, but I heard that Beowulf was actually not that great. And considering how many students are forced to read it for school, I wouldn't really expect its popularity to exactly shoot through the roof. |
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render
Posts: 12 |
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You can tell the basic Akira story in any developed country that has a big city in it (which doesn't even matter, since the city's been destroyed and rebuilt). Also, no one said the name of the movie will be Akira, but they'd be stupid not to use the name, since that's instant marketing to an installed fanbase. People already know Akira. If they named the movie "Brian" or something, people would have to draw an extra line. The fact that they are making it set in the US is not out of disrespect to the Japanese as a people. Do you think Warner Bros. would green-light a project like this if people came to then and said "We'd like to make a multi-million dollar budget movie, based on this old comic from Japan, and though your primary market is the English-speaking Western world, we'd like to set it in Japan, and keep all the Japanese stuff that's irrelevant to the story intact so we alienate most of your market." No. Making the setting and characters something to widen their potential audience is far from pointless. In an unrelated note, I think it's hilarious that The Hollywood Reporter has a picture of Akira from Rival Schools/Project Justice instead of the Kaneda pic they had earlier. edit: took out the "social commentary" BS, because I realized I was talking out of my ass. Last edited by render on Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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subaru
Posts: 120 Location: Australia |
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now, let's wish they would do a Ghost in the Shell movie too. I stroungly believe that it could be a block buster.
and............. of course.......... the long awaited Evangelion~ |
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