A live-action adaptation of AKIRA has never quite managed to come to pass – Warner Bros might yet find a way to make it happen, but right now the proverbial fish is dead in the fallout-filled water. Which is just as well – set to star Garrett Hedlund, Ken Watanabe, and Kristen Stewart with direction from Juame Collett-Serra (ORPHAN, UNKOWN), a moderately-budgeted Americanized remake of the classic manga was one ride most fans didn’t seem to want to take.
And speaking of rides, storyboard artist Jeffrey Errico has recently revealed the opening art he did up for the project on his website. I don’t think it’s anything that the pro or anti live-action Akira camps can use to stick a flag in their respective camps per se, though the art does clearly use the name “Neo Manhattan” instead of Neo Tokyo. Any way and either way, it’s done and passed and gone (for now) and these pieces of art are but a relic of what could have been.
On a side note, Erico’s site is well worth checking out – besides AKIRA, he has plenty storyboards and information up for of other projects on which he has worked that actually became movies (CRANK, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN).