Hughes Brothers To Direct Long-Gestating ‘Akira’ Adaptation; Might Be Two-Part Film

Sigh… what happened to the Hughes Brothers. They had such a promising career and took Hollywood by storm with their arresting first feature about gang life in L.A., “Menace II Society” (which still outclasses “Boyz In Da Hood” til this day). Their follow-up, the crime film, “Dead Presidents” wasn’t as successful, but it was still an interesting look at the black experience in the United States with interesting visuals and generally free of the didactic tone Spike Lee can sometime use (and turn off viewers with).

Their canvasses were expanding, but they were still essentially telling somewhat personal stories with a racial bent (‘Presidents’ look at discarded African American Vietnam veterans who seek out a heist in misguided retribution for being forsaken by their country).

But then things got iffy after their 1999 documentary, “American Pimp” and have continued in that direction ever since. 2001 brought the vapid and throw-away adaptation of Alan Moore’s “From Hell” starring Johnny Depp, and this January, audiences were subjected to the Joel Silver-lead, Wachoswski-brothers lite enervating post-apocalyptic film, “The Book of Eli.”

After “Book of Eli” we asked, “Which direction would they go?” because it seemed like they were at a cross roads in their career arc. Well, it appears they’ve already chosen. Vulture reports that the brothers are in negotiations to re-team with Warner Bros. for an live-action adaptation of the heralded 1988 anime film, “Akira” which has seemingly been in the works forever. Warner Brothers and Appian Way (Leonardo DiCaprio’s production shingle) had planned to adapt from the graphic novels, with Ruairi Robinson signed on as director, Gary Whitta writing and DiCaprio producing, but some of that has now changed.

Appian Way is still producing, but apparently “Iron Man” scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ost are now penning the screenplay.

As Vuture notes, summarizing the unwieldy plot is difficult, but essentially it’s about Akira is about the leader of a biker gang who tries to save his kidnapped pal from a powerful supernatural experiment. But since the plot and scope is so huge, apparently the plan is a to make the film into two parts.

This would be exciting if the Hughes Brother weren’t studio B-movie guys, who simply want to make movies like “The Matrix” over and over again. Seemingly anyhow. But this project will be exciting for some audiences and fans. Surely the geek set will be all over this.

A reader below points us to this. Amusing, and it’ll give you a wacky idea about what the film and comics are about if you haven’t read/seen.