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Live-Action Akira Plans Get Harry Potter Scriptwriter
posted on by Egan Loo
The producers of the planned live-action film adaptation of Katsuhiro Ōtomo's Akira science-fiction manga have hired Steve Kloves to polish the latest draft of the scripts. Kloves wrote the screenplays for all of the films based of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels except the fifth one. He also wrote the Wonder Boys film, and he wrote and directed The Fabulous Baker Boys film.
Albert Hughes (Menace II Society, From Hell, The Book of Eli) is attached to direct the project for Warner Brothers. The project's cast and release date have not been established yet.
Screenwriter Gary Whitta was previously attached to the project, which actor Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, Inception) is producing through his Appian Way production company. According to ComingSoon.net, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby also worked on the films' scripts before another writer, Albert Torres was hired to script the most recent draft last year.
Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar, DiCaprio, Appian Way's Jennifer Davisson Killoran, Hughes, and his brother Allen Hughes will produce the project. Otomo directed his own animated film adaptation that premiered on July 16, 1988 — the same day that the story has the fictional Tokyo being destroyed. Otomo will serve as an executive producer of the live-action version through a deal signed by his publisher, Kodansha.
Source: Variety
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