Taika Waititi still plans to direct live-action Akira

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Back in July, we passed along the lame news that THOR: RAGNAROK director Taika Waititi's live-action adaptation of AKIRA is was canceled so the filmmaker could work on THOR: LOVE & THUNDER. But today we've received a silver-lining as it seems the WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS filmmaker still plan to adapt AKIRA after finishing up on this new THOR motion picture.

He says:

Unfortunately, the timing with Akira, because we've been working really hard on the script, we had to keep pushing the start date for the shoot. We ended up having to push it a couple of weeks too far, which actually ate into the Thor schedule because they were very close together. And that got pushed again and again, and it just got too far into the Thor schedule to be able to make it work. And my first commitment was to Marvel to make that film, so now I've kind of had to take Akira and sort of shift it around to the tail-end of Thor and move it down a couple of years.

Supposedly, the project from producer Leonardo DiCaprio was set to begin filming this fall but was delayed so Waititi could find the right actors for the lead roles. And since that delay, the project died due to the director choosing to move onto THOR 4. Let's hope it all ends up coming together in the end. AKIRA needs a live-action adaptation, I say.

The original anime AKIRA was released on December 25, 1989, here in the U.S. and followed this synopsis:

In 1988 the Japanese government drops an atomic bomb on Tokyo after ESP experiments on children go awry. In 2019, 31 years after the nuking of the city, Kaneda, a bike gang leader, tries to save his friend Tetsuo from a secret government project. He battles anti-government activists, greedy politicians, irresponsible scientists and a powerful military leader until Tetsuo's supernatural powers suddenly manifest. A final battle is fought in Tokyo Olympiad exposing the experiment's secrets.

AKIRA was scheduled to open on May 21, 2021. Bummer.