It appears that the troubled Hollywood adaptation of Akira is truly dead. While I've never been emotionally invested in seeing the critically lauded manga series being turned into a live action film, I find myself feeling ambivalent about the news of its demise. It's interesting that the project attracted so much high-profile attention, from George Takei's strongly worded denunciation of Akira's casting, to virtually every actor being courted to play the lead often rumored to be turning it down. It's in no one's interest to produce a horrible movie that will tank at the box office. But this quitessentially Japanese product almost seems to have been treated as something toxic by the glitterati, and its failure to make it to the big screen makes me wonder why Hollywood is so prone to engendering such a clusterfuck.
Update: Huh? Apparently reports of the movies death were premature.
