Briefly: The next movie from Albert Hughes — and his first solo effort without brother Allen — is set to be Motor City, which sounds like a straight-up revenge story based on quick descriptions of the script by Chad St. John. Dominic Cooper stars as a guy just released from prison, who is out for revenge against the guys who framed him for a crime. I’m told the script is one of the most spare to go into production in a long time, with very little dialogue. Hopefully that will result in a film that is more distinguished than the basic logline makes it sound — perhaps a companion piece to Drive and The American.
Now Amber Heard is set to play the lead female role, though we don’t know anything about the specifics of the part. Heard has been on the verge of breaking out for a while, starting with her starring role in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, moving through her clothes-free scenes in The Informers, and films like Zombieland, The Ward, Drive Angry and The Rum Diary. She was also a lead in the short-lived show The Playboy Club, which was canceled after only three episodes aired.
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Two movies that have been batted around for some time have just made significant moves forward. First there’s Motor City, a film that was on the 2009 Black List, has only one line of dialogue in the entire thing, and is about a crook who is framed and dead set on revenge when he gets out. Albert Hughes will reportedly direct the film for Warner Bros. and he, along with producer Joel Silver, have offered Chris Evans as the lead.
Then there’s Lamb of God, Diablo Cody‘s directorial debut about a young religious girl who loses her faith and heads to Las Vegas. Russell Brand has reportedly been offered the co-starring male lead in the film. Read more about both these projects after the break. Read More »
This week, Dave, Devindra, and Adam wonder about the future of Akira and Uncharted, get psyched about David Fincher’s next film, and express their disgust for The Hangover: Part II. Special guest Katey Rich joins us from CinemaBlend.
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With innumerable mountains to climb on the way to remaking Akira, such as the dark storyline, escalating budget and lack of a star, the one constant the film had in recent months was a director. Now the remake of the classic Katsuhiro Otomo anime/manga is without a captain as director Albert Hughes (seen above right with his brother Allen) has reportedly left the film. This comes mere days after news broke that Keanu Reeves was the latest to pass on the lead role of Kaneda and that Warner Bros. had shut down a department working on pre-production. We ask again, what does this mean for Akira? Find out after the jump. Read More »
Neo won’t be Kaneda. JoBlo has exclusively learned that Keanu Reeves, who was offered the starring role in Warner Bros. Albert Hughes-directed, live action remake of Akira, has passed. They’ve also learned that Warners has shut down and fired much of a pre-visualization department that was working on the film. Does this mean Akira is dead? Not quite. Read more after the jump. Read More »
Oh, Akira. You’re never going to be able to make fans happy. Die-hards are going to hate the fact that the characters are older than the original incarnations in Katsuhiro Otomo‘s manga and movie — maybe up to 30 years older if this rumor comes true. There is the whitewashing issue, and the fact that, even with two films and a big-ish budget to play with, concessions will have to be made to put the story on screen.
But let’s throw this one out and see how everyone responds. While actors like James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson and Mila Kunis have been mentioned for roles, the current reported front-runner to play Akira‘s lead, the juvenile delinquent biker Kaneda, is Keanu Reeves. Whoa. Read More »
Looks like Warner Bros. is really going to make a new live-action version of Akira, adapted from Katsuhiro Otomo‘s massive manga of the same name. And it looks like some big changes — cosmetic ones at least, and probably several deep cuts — are in store. We’d already heard that a previous draft of the script was thrown at actors like Brad Pitt and James Franco, which suggested that the Albert Hughes-directed film is going to go pretty far off-book. (The leads in both the manga and anime versions of Akira are Japanese high-schoolers.)
The identities of actors that were offered a previous draft of the script seem to be open to question, but now there is a new shortlist based on the most recent script. That was just turned in by Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, and has reportedly been delivered to a handful of actors, with a few in mind as possible choices for the two lead roles of Kaneda and Tetsuo. Among the names are Robert Pattinson, Michael Fassbender and Joaquin Phoenix. Stop saying ‘WTF?’ and hit the jump for more info. Read More »
We know that Warner Bros. is aggressively moving forward on a live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo‘s classic manga Akira. Albert Hughes will direct the film from a script that has passed through the hands of several screenwriters, most recently landing on the desk of Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves. He’ll rewrite and then casting can get underway in earnest. (There have been many casting rumblings already, and we don’t know if this rewrite is motivated by failed attempts to land big names, as has been suggested.)
Meanwhile, a few pages from an earlier draft have been sent out to casting agencies, and have also ended up on the web. Hardcore Akira fans will liekyl find the contents to be a mixed bag. Read More »
