We Are the Sprocket Holes vol. 17 / Double You, Tea. F vol. 22 / U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 8

UPDATE: DiCaprio to Topline 'Akira', Director Confirmed!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

By: MrDisgusting

3 Comments

UPDATE: AICN adds that Joseph Gordon Levitt (Brick) will play Tetsuo! It was confirmed this afternoon our breaking news from last October (!) that Ruairi Robinson will direct the live-action adaptation of Akira for Warner Bros. Pictures. THR added a little something extra... Leonardo DiCaprio has been tapped to star in what will be a two-part epic! Read on for the entire story.

The anime classic "Akira" is getting the live-action big screen treatment courtesy of Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Bros.

Ruairi Robinson has been hired to direct what would ideally be a two-part epic. Gary Whitta is writing the adaptation, which DiCaprio will produce via his Appian Way shingle. Andrew Lazar is also producing via his Mad Chance shingle. Jennifer Davisson, who heads up Appian, will also be involved in some producorial capacity.

"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.

With its mature themes and cutting-edge animation, "Akira" was a milestone movie in anime and even animation circles, and led the way for anime making inroads into Western pop culture in the 1990s.

"Akira" has long been in development at the company, with producers Jon Peters and Basil Iwanyk involved at various times, as well as directors Stephen Norrington and Pitof. The rights lapsed but Warner managed to re-scoop them again for Robinson, who came to the studio with a vision of a two-part adaptation.

The new story moves the action to "New Manhattan," a city rebuilt by Japanese money.

The studio is eyeing a summer 2009 release for the first movie.

Greg Silverman is overseeing for Warners.

Whitta, repped by UTA and Circle of Confusion, wrote "The Book of Eli," which the Hughes Brothers are directing for Warners and Silver Pictures.

"Akira" would mark the feature directorial debut for Robinson who was nominated for a best animated short Oscar in 2001 for a sci-fi comedy called "Fifty Percent Grey." He also wrote and directed a sci-fi short titled "The Silent City" (watch it at BDTV), Robinson is repped by CAA and 3 Arts Entertainment.

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there is no possible way that this will work at all. the only way it might have been passable was if it was in the hands of one of the many talented Japanese directors out there. Shinya Tsukamoto, anyone?. or even someone like Richard Stanley (Hardware and Dust Devil would actually make for good Manga/Anime, but i digress) but even then it would be pointless. Akira was made for Manga/Anime. it belongs to that medium...it is defined by it and it defines it. it's about as perfect as that style of storytelling gets. shifting the location/nationality of the characters is also ridiculous and insulting, not to mention nonsensical and egotistical. but that's America i guess.

save us TETSUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Double You, Tea. F vol. 21

and now....AW.AWWW
AWWWWW
AWWWWWWW
AWWWWWWWWW
AWWWWWWWWWWW
AWW.

Quotent Quotables vol. 7

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.”

- Voltaire

Song for the Week of 2/18/08

THE GATHERING - "Strange Machines"



It has always been in the back of my mind;
dreaming about going into the corners of time.
I always wanted to fly in strange machines.

I wanna do centuries in a lifetime
and feel it with my hands,
touch world war II and Cleopatra
flying...

Could it be that my dream would come true,
building a machine that would actually do
what I want it to do?

Russian revolution, let's do that in one day.
Beethoven and Gershwin I think that would be o.k.
more than anything I wanna fly in strange machines.

I wanna do centuries in a lifetime
and see it with my eyes,
watch Jesus rise, if he ever did
flying...

I wanna do centuries in a lifetime
and feel it with my hands,
touch Renaissance and Chaka Khan
flying...

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 7 (Canadian Edition)

Metrosexual from Space Verbally Stomps the Homeless



"I can't stand the fact that homeless people are even in my neighborhood. I think that a comprehensive solution would be to move them to a separate part of town where they can't interact with decent, law abiding citizens"

they have those...they're called SLUMS, you cum siphoning bubblehead. And personally i'd be more comfortable "financing the lifestyle" of an incontinate street lurking alcoholic than some preening internet narcissist who dresses like a gay super-villain. If this is a joke, it fails. If this is humanity, it fails. Oh poor you, some homeless person is curb-stomping your metro-aesthetic with his anti-prettiness. Being poor and dying in the streets is soooo not trendy. Here's to your future prolapsed rectum or worse yet, a life on the streets where you can no longer put "product" in your hair or wax your chest until the Twink seal of approval can slide right off its surface.

Breakfast Farts vol. 6

The typing became some kind of alien rhythm..a dialect beyond words beyond use existing to find rather than to be.

This time of morning we sing like no one is there to hear, which means no one to judge. That’s all an audience is...judge and hung jury. Scenes are the executioners. They line us up, and going on the judgments of others decide who lives and who dies. Most die. Condemned to an obscurity that teases breakthrough but only has frustration and exile on its mind. That’s where the pain comes from. That’s where the inspiration comes from. At one point it reaches its zenith and it cannot be refused. You create some that encapsulates the severity in such a remarkable and apt way that it strikes nerve like a thumb & index finger snapping the flame out of a match head.

Then they’ll wonder where it comes from. Ex-girlfriend? Asshole boss and Shithead co-workers? Dismissive family members? The government? And suddenly you’ll realize that it’s not enough for them to be in pain...you need to have an answer. A fucking message. They don’t care about your anguish...what your creations mean to you...they only want to know how they can apply your creation to their lives. That’s why you remain misunderstood. Cause they don’t care about you.

My only answer is that none of us know what the hell is going on and we’re just looking for validation...a way to rationalize our actions and feelings and fears through medium and blame. We know and do not know nothing. The only thing that’s real to us is ourselves and because we don’t understand others we can’t really understand ourselves, so even when we’re face with the opportunity to understand what makes a person tick, all we can do is wait for self-application...but more often than not it results in misunderstanding.

We’re naively inconsiderate to our inspirations. Their pain is wasted on us.

***raspberry***