- British dinosaur-themed sci-fi series Primeval will not be returning for a fourth season reports Total Sci-Fi Online. The still popular show has fallen victim to substantial budget cuts at the fledgling ITV network in the UK which has seen other popular shows like crime procedural "Wire in the Blood" similarly get the axe before their time.
- Natalie Portman is attached to play the lead in Darren Aronofsky's supernatural thriller Black Swan says The Hollywood Reporter. Black Swan centers on a veteran ballerina (Portman) who finds herself locked in a competitive situation with a rival dancer, with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach a big performance. But it's unclear whether the rival is a supernatural apparition or if the protagonist is simply having delusions. Mark Heyman has done a rewrite of John McLaughlin's original script for the film.
- Paramount Pictures has picked up an untitled film pitch about the world of Costa Rica-based online casinos for Leonardo DiCaprio to star in says the trades. Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen) came up with the idea which DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran will produce for his Appian Way production company.
- Paramount Pictures and Montecito Co. have picked up Liz Meriwether's action-comedy script Honey Pot says Variety. While the storyline is being kept top secret, the film will feature two female leads and be set in the world of international espionage.
- Steven Conrad ("The Pursuit of Happyness") has been hired to rewrite the remake of The Karate Kid for Sony Pictures says Risky Biz Blog. Conrad takes over for Chris Murphy who was originally hired to write the script of the reboot starring Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith and Taraji P. Henson.
- Talking with Movieweb producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form spilled on the progress of various Platinum Dunes projects.
First up, the sequel to this year's hit Friday the 13th remake. "We want to have fun. We want to present something that audiences haven't seen before. One of the things they haven't seen before is Jason in the snow" said Fuller.
The pair also admits that their planned remake of The Birds is still very much stuck in development - "We keep trying. I don't know. That is so hard to get the script right. We struggle with it. I won't have anything to say until the script is finished. We lay ourselves out there and get annihilated out there online all day long,and [The Birds] just opens us up to a whole different level of annihilation…it doesn’t feel like that’s up next for us.”
- The Leonardo DiCaprio-produced live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's classic 1988 anime feature Akira has been ditched according to Bloody Disgusting. The project was a two-part film that Warners and DiCaprio's Appian Way had been developing with Gary Whitta ("The Book of Eli") scripting and Ruairi Robinson directing. Now according to BD, who first broke the news of the project 18 months ago, not only has Robinson left the project but the overall project is "dead as a doornail" according to two sources.
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Showing posts with label Akira. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Akira. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
UPDATED: Leonardo DiCaprio NOT to be a Button Man
UPDATE: Doh! Looks like I fell victim to an unsubstantiated rumour regarding this. MTV have this to say about it:The upcoming film “Button Man” is not related in any way to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — and, contrary to earlier reports, it’s not related to Leonardo DiCaprio, either.
Entertainment Weekly is crying foul on Internet rumors that the “Body of Lies” actor would star in the “2000 A.D.” comic property. The news site is reporting that Leo is not attached to “Button Man” according to studio representatives. The rumor originated from a listing in Production Weekly, a print magazine that provides information on Hollywood projects.
While DiCaprio’s involvement is now officially scrapped, there is movement on “Button Man.” A DreamWorks representative tells Entertainment Weekly that “Eagle Eye” screenwriter Hillary Seitz will pen the screenplay for the comic book adaptation.
So there you have it. If DiCaprio is not to be a Button Man, who could you see in the role?
The original post is below:
According to Production Weekly, Button Man focuses on Harry Exton, an ex-mercenary that participates in a violent underground sport known as “the game.” Exton is one of several killers — appropriately called ‘button men’ — that define victory by slaying their opponent or claiming the first two joints of their victim’s finger. When Harry decides to retire from the sport, he learns the hard way that his own survival is anything but a game.
DiCaprio is expected to star as Exton in the “2000 A.D.” comic book adaptation, from the same publishers of the in-development “Judge Dredd” relaunch. The actor-producer has snatched up the rights to several graphic novel properties as of late, such as the manga franchises “Ninja Scroll” and “Akira” — though he says that he won’t star in either film.
The erstwhile “Titanic” star has also found himself at the center of some higher profile comic book rumors in the last year. Alongside “Inglourious Basterds” actor Brad Pitt, DiCaprio has been mentioned as a contender for Steve Rogers in “The First Avenger: Captain America.”
Other than DiCaprio’s newly announced “Button Man” and his attachment to “The Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film “Inception,” not much is known about the Academy Award nominated actor’s involvement in comic book movie properties.
Source: MTV
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Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Akira - Script review of live action remake
This review of the Akira script is from Latino Review. Let me know your thoughts on it.
According to the trades, Warner Bros. will turn anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo's six-volume graphic novel "Akira" into two live-action feature films, the first of which is being fast tracked for release in summer 2009. Each feature will be based on three of the books in Otomo's series. The story takes place in New Manhattan, a metropolis that was rebuilt after being destroyed 31 years earlier.
Dr. Strangefist is a huge fan of the 1988 anime and recently took a look at the script by Gary Whitta. He chimes in with his thoughts below.
I am not anti-remake. They do not incense me like they do some people. In fact, I kind of like the idea when they’re done well, even if that’s not all that often, and when they are bad I generally subscribe to the notion that the original is still out there for you to watch and the remake can only increase awareness of it amongst the general movie-going population. So no harm no foul. Still, I can’t help but be a little skeptical, or at the very least nervous, when I hear that a film I love is being remade, or a book I love being adapted, and so on. Even if a remake isn’t ultimately going to take away from its source material I want it to do it justice and maybe even turn out to be something good in its own right. So as I’m sure you can imagine I was pretty damn skeptical approaching Gary Whitta’s screenplay for a live action American version of Akira, a personal favorite and easily one of the best and most influential anime films of all time. Many of you will probably be surprised to hear that the verdict is overall positive, or at least not altogether negative. In fact it’s pretty firmly somewhere in the middle.
The story takes place in a burgeoning new metropolis of the future, several years after a cataclysmic event destroyed the old city that once stood in its place. Unbeknownst to most of the populace, the real cause of the event was a small boy with incredible psychic powers, part of a top secret government program attempting to harness such so called “Espers” as weapons. The project is deemed too dangerous, and the young boy – AKIRA – is put in cryogenic stasis in a secret underground facility to prevent such a disaster from ever occurring again. In probably the most significant change and the only one that really bugged me, the events of this version are shifted from Tokyo to New York – but after the city is destroyed and the United States’ economy collapses, burgeoning superpower Japan buys the devastated island to construct a new city to house their ever expanding population. So the film will still technically be set in New Tokyo, but on the island of Manhattan, and with about half the characters being American and the rest remaining Japanese. It’s a somewhat odd way of appealing to American audiences and fans alike, and feels somewhat awkward, but does allow for some up to date political commentary.
In the ruins of the surrounding boroughs live KANEDA and TRAVIS, two young men who became good friends after being orphaned by the disaster and have since looked out for each other. They are now part of a biker gang called the Red Devils, which tries to maintain the peace in the lawless, neglected, impoverished outskirts they call home. KANEDA is the cocky leader, like a big brother to restless TRAVIS. Following a run-in with a rival gang and a chance encounter with some people smuggling a strange young boy out of the city, TRAVIS inadvertently unlocks dormant psychic abilities and KANEDA gets involved in a resistance movement attempting to stop the resurrected Espers research program, headed by the military and Vanguard, a Blackwater-esque private military contractor. SHACKLETON, an army colonel who was part of the original experiments, mainly wants to contain these powerful psychics and protect the city, while NELLIS, defense secretary in the pocket of Vanguard, wants to restart the weapons development side of the program.
With the help of his new allies RAY, former Vanguard employee and leader of the resistance, and KAY, one of their former test subjects, Kaneda attempts to rescue Travis, who has been taken into custody by Shackleton and his team. Travis’ new powers are so powerful that they awaken the mind of the sleeping Akira, and Shackleton fears a repeat of the cataclysmic event that destroyed the city so many years before. Travis finds himself inexplicably drawn to Akira, and, his ego and powers spiraling out of control, he escapes from captivity and goes on a rampage of destruction trying to reach the secret facility where Akira is kept. The story becomes a race to stop him – Kaneda, Kay, and Travis’ girlfriend KAORI wanting to bring him back alive and sane, and Shackleton intent on destroying him to prevent another apocalyptic event. True to the epic scope of the original, this is only part one of two planned movies, so the script ends with a huge but intriguing cliffhanger.
The people out there who demand faithfulness in adaptations and remakes should be pleasantly surprised, even if not outright delighted by this script; sure, a few elements are slightly watered-down, Hollywood-ized, Americanized – but there is no outright wrecking, ruining, or childhood raping going on here. All things considered it is shockingly faithful to the source material, at times reading like a flat-out transcript/description of the animated movie, and even incorporating aspects of the original manga that were left out of the anime version. It is faithful not only in plot and character details, but in tone. It retains the darkness, the violence, the epic qualities and even some of the themes, though they’ve been tweaked, Americanized, and updated to apply to current events. They are also maybe a bit less complex, but still this is admirable. This adaptation actually retains a lot of the style and, more surprisingly, substance of the original. If you are already a fan, you will probably like this adaptation, because a lot of the same things are good about it.
The other side of that coin, though, is that it’s not bringing many fresh ideas or perspectives on the material to the table. What I love about good remakes or adaptations, what in fact makes some of them good, is that they are opportunities for artists with distinct voices and visions to take already existing works and re-interpret them, pay respect to them but use them to say new things and make them their own. There is very little of that happening here. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I’m talking about how faithful it is, a lot of that reaction is due to my surprise that it’s not a complete bastardization. We’re not exactly talking Gus Van Sant’s Psycho levels of slavishness here. But it’s not a particularly fresh take either. Neither infuriatingly dumbed-down nor invigoratingly creative and exciting, it just kind of exists - at least as a script.
The big, looming unknown that remains now is if the quality of the filmmaking can not only do justice to the words on the page, but ultimately to help justify the whole thing’s existence. The original is known as much if not more so for being a stunning visual feast as it is for its story and themes, so if this project fails in that regard it will probably be a disappointment regardless of how true the script is to the source. And at the same time, I think what I’ve said above applies to currently slated director Ruiri Robinson just as much as it does to the writer; if he just apes the visual style and shots of the original it’ll get points for being faithful but won’t be very exciting or interesting. It’s going to need to look just as good, but at the same time different to really stand apart from the other version, at least in the eyes of this fan.
Having said all of this, I’ll add that I’d still rather have a finished product that hews very close to prior incarnations and maybe doesn’t have a lot to say on its own than one that hopelessly dumbs down or simply discards everything that made the original a classic – and of course, that all depends on how things pan out in part two. If this script is an indication of the direction in which this project is headed, and if it indeed stays on this path, than I think it will yield something that fans will find satisfying overall and which also potentially has a lot of appeal to newcomers. I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who hasn’t seen or maybe even heard of Akira before and I’m thinking that this would strike me as pretty awesome stuff. As a remake it may not be necessary, but then again what really is when we’re talking about entertainment?
HOME / FORUM.
According to the trades, Warner Bros. will turn anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo's six-volume graphic novel "Akira" into two live-action feature films, the first of which is being fast tracked for release in summer 2009. Each feature will be based on three of the books in Otomo's series. The story takes place in New Manhattan, a metropolis that was rebuilt after being destroyed 31 years earlier.
Dr. Strangefist is a huge fan of the 1988 anime and recently took a look at the script by Gary Whitta. He chimes in with his thoughts below.
I am not anti-remake. They do not incense me like they do some people. In fact, I kind of like the idea when they’re done well, even if that’s not all that often, and when they are bad I generally subscribe to the notion that the original is still out there for you to watch and the remake can only increase awareness of it amongst the general movie-going population. So no harm no foul. Still, I can’t help but be a little skeptical, or at the very least nervous, when I hear that a film I love is being remade, or a book I love being adapted, and so on. Even if a remake isn’t ultimately going to take away from its source material I want it to do it justice and maybe even turn out to be something good in its own right. So as I’m sure you can imagine I was pretty damn skeptical approaching Gary Whitta’s screenplay for a live action American version of Akira, a personal favorite and easily one of the best and most influential anime films of all time. Many of you will probably be surprised to hear that the verdict is overall positive, or at least not altogether negative. In fact it’s pretty firmly somewhere in the middle.
The story takes place in a burgeoning new metropolis of the future, several years after a cataclysmic event destroyed the old city that once stood in its place. Unbeknownst to most of the populace, the real cause of the event was a small boy with incredible psychic powers, part of a top secret government program attempting to harness such so called “Espers” as weapons. The project is deemed too dangerous, and the young boy – AKIRA – is put in cryogenic stasis in a secret underground facility to prevent such a disaster from ever occurring again. In probably the most significant change and the only one that really bugged me, the events of this version are shifted from Tokyo to New York – but after the city is destroyed and the United States’ economy collapses, burgeoning superpower Japan buys the devastated island to construct a new city to house their ever expanding population. So the film will still technically be set in New Tokyo, but on the island of Manhattan, and with about half the characters being American and the rest remaining Japanese. It’s a somewhat odd way of appealing to American audiences and fans alike, and feels somewhat awkward, but does allow for some up to date political commentary.
In the ruins of the surrounding boroughs live KANEDA and TRAVIS, two young men who became good friends after being orphaned by the disaster and have since looked out for each other. They are now part of a biker gang called the Red Devils, which tries to maintain the peace in the lawless, neglected, impoverished outskirts they call home. KANEDA is the cocky leader, like a big brother to restless TRAVIS. Following a run-in with a rival gang and a chance encounter with some people smuggling a strange young boy out of the city, TRAVIS inadvertently unlocks dormant psychic abilities and KANEDA gets involved in a resistance movement attempting to stop the resurrected Espers research program, headed by the military and Vanguard, a Blackwater-esque private military contractor. SHACKLETON, an army colonel who was part of the original experiments, mainly wants to contain these powerful psychics and protect the city, while NELLIS, defense secretary in the pocket of Vanguard, wants to restart the weapons development side of the program.
With the help of his new allies RAY, former Vanguard employee and leader of the resistance, and KAY, one of their former test subjects, Kaneda attempts to rescue Travis, who has been taken into custody by Shackleton and his team. Travis’ new powers are so powerful that they awaken the mind of the sleeping Akira, and Shackleton fears a repeat of the cataclysmic event that destroyed the city so many years before. Travis finds himself inexplicably drawn to Akira, and, his ego and powers spiraling out of control, he escapes from captivity and goes on a rampage of destruction trying to reach the secret facility where Akira is kept. The story becomes a race to stop him – Kaneda, Kay, and Travis’ girlfriend KAORI wanting to bring him back alive and sane, and Shackleton intent on destroying him to prevent another apocalyptic event. True to the epic scope of the original, this is only part one of two planned movies, so the script ends with a huge but intriguing cliffhanger.
The people out there who demand faithfulness in adaptations and remakes should be pleasantly surprised, even if not outright delighted by this script; sure, a few elements are slightly watered-down, Hollywood-ized, Americanized – but there is no outright wrecking, ruining, or childhood raping going on here. All things considered it is shockingly faithful to the source material, at times reading like a flat-out transcript/description of the animated movie, and even incorporating aspects of the original manga that were left out of the anime version. It is faithful not only in plot and character details, but in tone. It retains the darkness, the violence, the epic qualities and even some of the themes, though they’ve been tweaked, Americanized, and updated to apply to current events. They are also maybe a bit less complex, but still this is admirable. This adaptation actually retains a lot of the style and, more surprisingly, substance of the original. If you are already a fan, you will probably like this adaptation, because a lot of the same things are good about it.
The other side of that coin, though, is that it’s not bringing many fresh ideas or perspectives on the material to the table. What I love about good remakes or adaptations, what in fact makes some of them good, is that they are opportunities for artists with distinct voices and visions to take already existing works and re-interpret them, pay respect to them but use them to say new things and make them their own. There is very little of that happening here. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I’m talking about how faithful it is, a lot of that reaction is due to my surprise that it’s not a complete bastardization. We’re not exactly talking Gus Van Sant’s Psycho levels of slavishness here. But it’s not a particularly fresh take either. Neither infuriatingly dumbed-down nor invigoratingly creative and exciting, it just kind of exists - at least as a script.
The big, looming unknown that remains now is if the quality of the filmmaking can not only do justice to the words on the page, but ultimately to help justify the whole thing’s existence. The original is known as much if not more so for being a stunning visual feast as it is for its story and themes, so if this project fails in that regard it will probably be a disappointment regardless of how true the script is to the source. And at the same time, I think what I’ve said above applies to currently slated director Ruiri Robinson just as much as it does to the writer; if he just apes the visual style and shots of the original it’ll get points for being faithful but won’t be very exciting or interesting. It’s going to need to look just as good, but at the same time different to really stand apart from the other version, at least in the eyes of this fan.
Having said all of this, I’ll add that I’d still rather have a finished product that hews very close to prior incarnations and maybe doesn’t have a lot to say on its own than one that hopelessly dumbs down or simply discards everything that made the original a classic – and of course, that all depends on how things pan out in part two. If this script is an indication of the direction in which this project is headed, and if it indeed stays on this path, than I think it will yield something that fans will find satisfying overall and which also potentially has a lot of appeal to newcomers. I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who hasn’t seen or maybe even heard of Akira before and I’m thinking that this would strike me as pretty awesome stuff. As a remake it may not be necessary, but then again what really is when we’re talking about entertainment?
HOME / FORUM.
Monday, 27 October 2008
Ninja Scrolls to go Live Action
This from First Showing.
First it was Akira, now it's Ninja Scroll, too. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way will be producing a live-action adaptation of the classic anime movie for Warner Brothers. Screenwriter Alex Tse, who wrote Zack Snyder's upcoming Watchmen as well as Michael Mann's upcoming Frankie Machine, will be writing the script. No director has been announced yet, but considering Akira picked up a no-name director, I expect Ninja Scroll to probably do the same. At one point, it was rumored that James McTeigue's Ninja Assassin was a Ninja Scroll remake, but that was quickly debunked. Now it's actually happening.
Ninja Scroll is a Japanese action thriller anime written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The film was first released in Japan in 1993 and made its way to the US in 1996, where it quickly became one of the most popular anime movies in US history. The anime is set feudal Japan and tells the story of a ninja-for-hire who is forced into fighting an old nemesis who is bent on overthrowing the Japanese government. His nemesis is also the leader of a group of demons each with superhuman powers. In addition to Akira, it's regarded as one of the best anime movies ever made and is just as popular.
One of the biggest questions surrounding this is whether or not all of the violence, gore, sex, and nudity will remain intact in this translation. I'm expecting that Warner Brothers will try to make this PG-13, but then again, it could very well be R. I'm thinking they're waiting to see how Ninja Assassin does in theaters, since that is a very hard R ninja movie. Either way, this is quite an exciting future for anime fans, with Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, and now Ninja Scroll all being converted into live-action Hollywood adaptations.
What do you think of that news?
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
A splash of Tron a touch of Akira equals the Ferrari Motorbike
Like the bastard offspring of a Tron lightcycle and the iconic bike from Akira gives you this. What do you think of it? Any petrol heads out there who know more about it? It doesn't look driveable to these eyes.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Akira - Live action news from the Big Giant Head!
The news on the live action version of Katsuhiro Ôtomo's 1988 masterpiece Akira,was that Warner Bros. had snapped up the movie rights for Leonardo DiCaprio’s company to produce (and for him to possibly star). Then it was mentioned that Joseph Gordon Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, Brick, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra) had nabbed the co-starring role of Tetsuo in the live-action version of the anime. Since then it has all gone quiet, until this snippet of news surfaced:
MTV asked Joseph Gordon Levitt, about Akira the movie:“That just goes to show what you can believe about what people write about movies. I love the movie ‘Akira.’ I still have yet to read the manga, but that’s really just a rumor. They don’t have a script or anything.”
Akira is a great animated movie and for me and many others it was the gateway into the weird and wonderful world of anime. The manga is well worth picking up and is much bigger and deeper than the movie. Not sure if it needs to be made as a live action movie (Kanye West had a go at it in that Stronger video of his). However, it would be cool to see Kaneda's bike on the big screen. I think Levitt certainly fits the look of Tetsuo but they would need to chuck a load of money at the project to make sure they get the Blade Runner-esque look of it right.
What do you think of the news? Still early days as no script for it yet but do you think it needs to be remade as a live action movie? What did you think of the original anime? What other anime movies out there would suit going the live action route?
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