Rumors linking Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok) to the long-awaited big screen adaptation of the cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic manga, Akira, have been swirling around the web for years now, and it appears that everything is finally coming together!
Warner Bros. has just dated Akira, directed by Taika Waititi, for release on May 21st, 2021!
Leonardo DiCaprio is producing the new take on the Japanese source material.
In Akira, a secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
"My mom took me to see Akira in the cinema in 1989, or whenever it came out in New Zealand, and it was a huge turning point in my life for what I imagined animation to be and realizing what it could be. It’s stuck with me this whole time and I feel, visually, the film was such an amazing thing," Waititi told io9 back in 2017. "So I read the [comic] books and I was always more curious as to what a broader adaptation of the books might look like instead of a remake of the film, which doesn’t need to be remade. But I do feel there could be a cool live-action adaptation of the books."
The classic manga was first adapted back in 1988.