Live Action Akira Remake Gets New Writer

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Akira fans get ready to e-x-p-l-o-d-e as the planned American remake took a huge step forward with the appointment of a writer – and he’s a pretty solid choice.

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Marco J. Ramirez, who previously wrote for Sons Of Anarchy and was recently hired to run the second season of Marvel and Netflix’s Daredevil, has added even more work to his schedule by signing on the dotted line to finally try and produce a script that will bring Akira to the big screen.

Ramirez is in the middle of putting together the second season of Daredevil with co-writer Doug Petrie and now faces the arduous task of bring the long-gestating Akira to the big screen for Andrew Lazar and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way productions.

Warner Bros originally acquired the rights to the film all the way back in 2002. But since then they’ve made numerous false starts. The closest we came to seeing a live-action version of the Manga that helped legitimise the art form for western audiences was in 2012 when Jaumet Collet-Serra, the director of House Of Wax, Orphan, Unknown, Non-Stop, and Run All Night began casting, and he had even begun negotiations with the likes of Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe, and Helena Bonham Carter.

But in March 2015, Serra confirmed that his version of Akira was no more, and he added that he wanted to take a break from directing. Fingers crossed, Ramirez’s script will have better luck by the time it’s complete.

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