Warner is reportedly happy with Steve Kloves’ (who wrote seven of the Harry Potter scripts) rewrite of the Akira script and have sent it out to their top choices to play Tetsuo and Kaneda. So who do they want to play these younger-than-16 Japanese juvenile delinquents? 20-something and 30-something white guys, of course.
Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have all had the screenplay sent their way for the role of Tetsuo, while Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix will be flipping the pages for the part of Kaneda. [ThePlaylist]
Warner, I will fight you.
Also, they’re making it a PG-13 film. Once again, in trying to follow an arbitrary, often-wrong formula for making a profit (PG13 + white actors with names recognizable at the moment) a studio is throwing out elements that helped make the damn source material successful in the first place. All I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if Japan decides to get back at us by making a movie about our founding fathers and casts teenage Japanese girls in all the roles. Actually, that sounds awesome. Let’s make that happen.