Back in May we ran a post headlined "Taika Waititi’s AKIRA Will Hit Theaters In Summer 2021".
The sub-hed on that post? "This one really appears to be happening this time!"
Well, guess what? According to The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit, Akira has been removed from Warner Bros.' release calendar, with no further word on when - or, more likely, if - it'll find a new date. Taika Waititi, who was announced as "in talks" to direct the project as far back as 2017 (following studio flirtations with directors Jordan Peele and Justin Lin) is already hard at work on his next project, a feature film adaptation of the Kiwi soccer documentary Next Goal Wins.
Much like the doomed reboot of The Crow, the live-action Akira movie seems cursed to never actually get made. Sometimes these projects do finally come together (just look at Uncharted, which went through something like 8,500 directors before finally [?] moving forward [???] with Bumblebee's Travis Knight in the director's chair), but generally speaking: if a project stalls out this many times, it's probably best just to leave well enough alone.
Which is to say: meet us back here in a few months for the announcement of an all-new director on the live-action Akira remake! We'll write it up, you'll read it, kinda forget about it, and then - a few months into the film's development - the project will violently implode before being quietly moved from WB's release schedule. This will continue long after you, me and everyone we know is dead, as it is the only known way to keep the Elder Remake Gods satiated.
Stay tuned.
(Note: Header art by Tyler Stout, for Mondo)