Warner Bros. has been “courting” filmmakers for so long that I’m beginning to wonder what’s scaring everyone off?
Back in June, the studio was allegedly targeting Justin Lin, director of many Fast and Furious films, such as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift through Fast & Furious 6, as well as Star Trek Beyond. It appears they’ve moved on and are attempting to land Get Out‘s Jordan Peele, according to this tracking board.
The site also added that they’ve heard Daniel Espinosa (Life) and David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle 2) are also on Warners shortlist, the latter of which we can confirm here on Bloody Disgusting.
While nothing is confirmed, this would be quite the revival for the franchise that’s been in development hell since 2002 (when Ruairí Robinson was attached to direct).
In September 2015 it was being reported that Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Inception) had been rumored to be involved in the project that’s being handled by Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company, Appian Way, and the script being written by Marco J. Ramirez (“Sons of Anarchy”).
Akira was originally a six-volume manga written by Katsuhiro Otomo, so a trilogy would really allow the movies to dive into the stories rather than try to squeeze everything into one film.
In the Manga, “A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psionic psychopath that only two kids and a group of psionics can stop.”