Movies
Breaking: How to Ruin ‘Akira’, or How to Break Zac Efron?
BREAKING: My heart just sank deep, deep into the depths of hell as I just learned that Zac Efron was just offered the LEAD role in Allen and Albert Hughes’ Akira adaptation. “Akira” originated in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story was set in a neon-lit futuristic post-nuclear war “New Tokyo” in 2019 where a teen biker gang member is subjected to a government experiment which unleashes his latent powers. The gang’s leader must find a way to stop the ensuing swathe of destruction. Now, there are two lead roles in the original Manga/animated feature: Shotaro Kaneda (the gang leader) and Tetsuo Shima, the black sheep of the gang who gets caught up in the government experiment (obviously to be renamed in the American New York version). Efron would play the role of the biker “Kaneda Shim”. My immediate thoughts were that this casting will either ruin the movie — or maybe this could be the role that breaks Efron out of the teen-heartthrob subculture and into the mainstream.
In addition to Leigh Whannell’s upcoming Universal Monsters movie Wolf Man, Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel) has also joined the cast of Weapons, THR has announced tonight.
Weapons is the new horror movie from New Line Cinema and director Zach Cregger (Barbarian), with Julia Garner joining the previously announced Josh Brolin (Dune 2).
The upcoming Weapons is from writer/director Zach Cregger, who will also produce alongside his Barbarian producing team: Roy Lee of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. Vertigo’s Miri Yoon also produces.
The Hollywood Reporter teases, “Plot details for Weapons are being kept holstered but it is described as a multi and inter-related story horror epic that tonally is in the vein of Magnolia, the 1999 actor-crammed showcase from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.”
Cregger was a founding member and writer for the New York comedy troupe “The Whitest Kids U’Know,” which he started while attending The School of Visual Arts. The award-winning group’s self-titled sketch comedy show ran for five seasons on IFC-TV and Fuse. He was also a series regular on Jimmy Fallon’s NBC series “Guys with Kids” and the TBS hit series “Wrecked,” and was featured in a recurring role on the NBC series “About a Boy.”
Weapons will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.
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