Thursday, July 14, 2011
Warner Brothers chooses Jaume Collet-Serra to direct Akira
Jumping off from the story reported just a few short hours ago, Variety is now confirming that Jaume Collet-Serra will direct Warner Brothers' live-action film based on the classic manga and anime, Akira. He'll be replacing Albert Hughes(Menace II Society), who bailed on the film in May amidst repeated delays and casting squabbles.
The once big budgeted film has seen it's cost slashed to roughly $90M, thanks to a new script drafted by Steve Kloves(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). Now the question turns to who will star in the film, about a pair of rebellious friends who find themselves in the midst of a government experiment gone awry. The story has been reworked to take it out of Japan and into a fictional place called New Manhattan. Candidates to star had previously focused on a combination of young and older talent, including Keanue Reeves, Michael Fassbender, Robert Pattinson, and Garrett Hedlund.
This is a solid choice by Warner Brothers. Collet-Serra surprised me with how good his horror remake of House of Wax turned out. In 2009 he gave us the adoptee slasher flick, Orphan, which turned a hefty profit mostly on word of mouth. Earlier this year he was behind the camera for Unknown, the Liam Neeson thriller which suffered from a disjointed script moreso than anything else.
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