Guess who’s back for the Akira remake? Director Jaume Collet-Serra!

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Early last year Warner Bros. pulled the plug on a live-action version of AKIRA with director Jaume Collet-Serra due to casting issues and concerns over how high the budget was going to be for the film. Many of you Schmoes rejoiced when it was announced, but I have some bad news for you:

It's back on. And Jaume Collet-Serra is back too.

Variety is reporting that while Warner Bros. did look at other directors for AKIRA (including the guys who did CATFISH…wait, what?) the studio apparently really liked the work Jaume Collet-Serra had done in pre-production, and his schedule has opened up a bit so the director is now in talks to return to the project. Variety also says that Collet-Serra will approach the live-action remake in a new way that will keep the film's budget at a comfortable level for Warner Bros., although there are no specifics on how much the film may cost. There also isn't any news on if the actors originally attached to the film are still available, such as Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and Ken Watanabe.

Like how HEAVY METAL was for many of you (including JoBlo.com's very own Steve Seigh who wrote an excellent column about the film in this week's Ink & Pixel), AKIRA was one of my very first experiences with more adult animation and in particular anime. I'm not a huge fan anime in general but there are some I really do love and like how it is with any film genre, sometimes you've got to dig through some crap (how many shitty zombie movies are released each year) to get to the good stuff.

I would absolutely love a live-action AKIRA, but I just don't think Warner Bros. will do the property justice if they are still that concerned about the budget, because let's face it you kind of need to sink some money into this thing if it's going to be done right. There have been directors that have done amazing work with limited funds, but I don't want to see that with AKIRA. Although "limited funds" is probably not the best term to use since the budget will still be at least (I'm guessing here) $75 million.

But with how much trouble Warner Bros. has had bringing the remake to the big screen we could find out in two weeks that the whole thing has been canceled again. So until it's at the point where Collet-Serra (or someone else) is actually filming the movie I'm not going to worry too much about AKIRA, but I do hope if it does happen it is everything it should be.