Kristen Stewart (Twilight) has been in talks to star in the live-action Hollywood adaptaion of Akira, the gritty and influential 1988 animated cyberpunk film originally directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (based on his own manga/comic).
Stewart will play Kei, a woman who is part of an underground movement to expose the government for experimenting on orphans to turn into weapons with psychic powers. This could mark her third involvement in a movie franchise, after Twilight and Snow White and the Huntsman (which, if successful, may become a trilogy), as Warner Bros. has designed Akira to be the first of a two (or three) part movie franchise. (Source: MTV)
So far, Stewart's costar from the upcoming On the Road, Garret Hedlund (Tron: Legacy), has been offered to play Kaneda, the main character and leader of a biker gang, as well as rumors of Gary Oldman as the Colonel and Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Miyako.
The film is set in a place called New Manhattan (as opposed to Neo-Tokyo in the anime).
The anime/manga originally took place in a violent, dystopic Neo-Tokyo in 2019 after Tokyo's original destruction 31 years prior by a boy named Akira, who had psychic/supernatural powers. Akin to an animated version of Blade Runner in terms of style, the anime's meticulous attention to detail, life-like animation, and environment would go on to influence other animes like Ghost in the Shell and Armitage III. The anime also touched on social issues, corruption, and contained gritty violence and gore.
Admittedly, 1988 Akira adaptation attempted to squeeze six volumes of the epic manga (comic) into one film, causing confusion for some viewers. The producers of the live action version are planning to squeeze the first three volumes of the book in the first movie and the last three on the sequel. (Source: Reelz)
Here is the upcoming film's synopsis:
Part one of a two-part live action adaptation of the 1988 anime film, "Akira", in which the leader of a biker gang tries to save his kidnapped friend from a powerful supernatural experiment.
Adapted by a variety of screenwriters including Steve Kloves (Harry Potter), produced by Leonardo Di Caprio's Appian Way production company, and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Unknown, House of Wax), Akira is scheduled to arrive in Orange County theaters on 2013.
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