Weekly Anime News Update: Akira, Noir, and Ranma adaptations

Written by on October 23rd, 2011
Live Action Ranma ½ cast in Costume

I’ve mentioned the upcoming live-action Ranma ½ adaptation in a previous weekly news post, and now I have something exciting to follow up the story! This Thursday, Crunchyroll posted a bunch of pictures of the cast for the adaptation in costume. Some of the casting choices are a bit… interesting, but for the most part I think the characters are well represented. For Ranma ½ fans new and old alike, this is a cool thing to see.

[http://www.crunchyroll.com/]

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Warner Brothers Greenlights Akira adaptation

Well, anime fans, weather you want it or not, it looks like a Hollywood live action adaptation of the classic Sci-fi/cyber punk anime Akira is coming. According to Variety, Warner Bros. After spending ages in development hell, the project gained some movement when Warner contacted Jaume Cosset-Serra to direct the movie with a then proposed budget of 90 million which had been lowered from 100 million. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Killoran are assigned as producers and Garret Hedlund (of Tron Legacy) is a front runner for the pivotal lead role of Kaneda. Warner Brothers has no comment on the project at this time. Personally, this anime fan hopes this adaptation falls back into the shadows, at least for now.

[http://www.variety.com/]

 

Trailer Released for New Season of Hetalia

Earlier this week, Funimation released a trailer for the hit Hetalia series Season 3: Hetalia: World Series

The personifications of the allied and axis powers are set to return to DVD on January 17th. Enjoy the trailer!

 

 [http://www.crunchyroll.com/]

Staff Changes to Live Action Noir Series

Some of you may remember the news that came out this summer about a live action version of the excellent action anime Noir. This past week , some changes were announced about the staff heading the Live action adaptation of this girls with guns show that is set to air next Summer on Starz. The executive producer, and head script writer has left the project. His replacement is Sean Jablonski who was the Executive producer of Suits and worked on the FX drama Nip/Tuck. Working alongside Jablonski as executive producers are Sam Raimi of Spiderman and Evil Dead  fame as well as Joshua Donen, who worked on Spartacus, and Rob Tapert who was the executive producer behind Xena: Warrior Princess. It’s still too early to tell if these changes are good or bad, but I’m going to try to stay hopeful that this excellent series gets the treatment it deserves.

[http://www.crunchyroll.com/]

  • ckmc

    Nice compilation! Hetalia automatically makes it about 20% cooler, which if my math is correct…

    Shoot. My calculator broke. Let’s just say it’s over 9-

    *is shot mid-sentence*

    Anyway, I look forward to the next list you make. Keep up the good work!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Anthony/1449543469 Mike Anthony

      Thanks! It’s always nice to hear positive feedback.
      and yeah, adding Hetalia to pretty much anything up’s the awesome factor

  • Ceth

    Akira is becoming live-action? But HOW? There was so much stuff going on in the latter half of that movie which would be ridiculously expensive to attempt to replicate in live-action. Oh well, it’s a wonderful movie itself. I hope they manage to keep the ruined, empty post-apocalyptic feel and the reddish, almost blood-splattered hues of the colours used. The atmosphere was one of those things which made it a classic, and I hope they don’t butcher that.

    That, I seriously wonder how they’ll manage it without getting an 18+ rating (or X-rating or whatever you use in America). Ah well, they seem to be using some big name actors, which should be cool to see.

  • Allex

    The budget for the live-action should be accordingly high..They might not even go through with it..I remember people tryed putting a Cowboy Bebop live-action script together..
    Which would of costed them a couple of billion dollars if they went through with it..
    They ended up rewriting the script..>>The details are still unknown.
    What i am afraid of the most is..if they don’t invest “enough” so it will turn out
    like the “DB evolution” which is in my opinion the worst adaptation ever done.