Jaume Collet-Serra On His Live Action ‘Akira’ Film

The 1988 anime classic AKIRA has gone down as one of the greatest animated films of all time, even after twenty five years it remains one of the most influential science fiction stories ever told. After two English dubs of the fantastic AKIRA it came as no surprise that Hollywood was looking to cash in and adapt it as a live action film franchise.

This understandably caused heavy criticism among fans of the original anime and the manga in which the film was based on. The issue wasn’t helped with controversial plot leaks such as the change in setting from Neo-Tokyo to New-Manhattan. After years in development hell the project was eventually shelved by Warner Bros. due to the high financial risk the film carried. Now whilst promoting his new film NON-STOP starring Liam Neeson, director Jaume Collet-Serra has been chatting about AKIRA.

Serra has been attached as director of the live action adaptation for over three years now and claims that despite numerous set-backs the project is still alive and kicking. You can read the interview below:

When you were working on “Akira”?

Collet-Serra: I’m still working on “Akira,” so that’s part of my life. (laughs)

That’s great that you’re sticking with it despite the bumps in the road.

Collet-Serra: It’s great that they’re waiting for me. It’s different, because you have to be respectful of the source material. Otomo adapted his own work from a manga into an anime and both things are completely different and genius. The only way to do a live version of “Akira” is to take the spirit and adapt it. It will be as different as the anime was from the manga.

What worries myself and a lot of the other fans of the property is you have elements that are commercial and sexy, like the motorbikes or the jaw-dropping futuristic backdrop, but for the most part it’s a very cerebral work. How do you maintain the essence of that without diluting it into essentially “Blade Runner: Mark 2”?

Collet-Serra: I think you cannot make a movie about “Akira” and hope that everyone understands it. Like everything else, you have to make three or four movies in one where there’s the essence somewhere. If you’re a fan, you already know what it’s about and you’ll see it’s part of the same world, but trying to oversimplify it would be a mistake. I think if at some point a character tries to explain it to the audience at the end of the second act, that’s a problem. It’s more like an existential opera. It’s something that can only be explained in the manga, and even in the anime it’s hard to follow.

And we all have that original anime, it’s there, nothing can sully it, so if you were going to do it in live-action one would hope you would bring something new to the table. What is it you are bringing specifically that is going to make it yours?

Collet-Serra: I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don’t think the main characters are the protagonists. What I’m hoping is to bring characters.

That’s true. It’s one of those strange stories where you literally never see the main character that is the namesake of the film!

Collet-Serra: Nobody’s interesting. Tetsuo’s interesting because weird sh*t happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That’s part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They’re used as a way to move the other philosophy forward.

They’re ciphers.

Collet-Serra: Yeah. So hopefully in my version that will be strong, and you’ll have a story that happens in that world that will show you a little bit of the mystery. Then, if you’re interested, they’ll make “Akira 2 & 3” then you can get deeper into it. I love the world, a lot of people love that world, so why wouldn’t we indulge in it a little bit and see how it would be if it was real? Like you say I don’t have to explain everything, but wouldn’t you like to spend two-hours in a world of “Akira” and follow a character and be like, “that’s cool”? That’s all I want to offer, is two-hours in a world you can actually feel. We’re working on it.

As a big fan of AKIRA I am very dubious that Warner Bros. and Serra can do the film justice in a live action remake as well as making it relevant and original to a contemporary audience. After all it’s incredibly difficult to directly adapt something that’s not only beloved worldwide but has also indirectly influenced everything from THE MATRIX to CHRONICLE. Check back with the Hollywood News for more updates on AKIRA.

Source: Coming Soon