You'll either love this or hate it. Here's why:
The Akira remake has been ghosting us for years—slipping in and out of development like a cyberpunk specter. One moment it's happening, the next it's sidelined for Thor. But now, director Taika Waititi is whispering promises again, and producer Andrew Lazar is fanning the flames: “Expect an update in the next couple of months.” That might sound like déjà vu, but something's different this time.
The question is no longer if this adaptation will happen. It's why now? And what makes this round more credible than the last half-dozen attempts?
Here's the uncomfortable truth:
Hollywood loves legacy IP—but it rarely knows what to do with it. Akira has been passed around like a cursed VHS tape, collecting high-profile names and dashed expectations. Since Waititi signed on in 2017, the film's been both a promise and a punchline. Then Thor: Love and Thunder pulled rank in 2019, and Akira was iced. Again.
But unlike past iterations, this version has traction:
- A co-written script by Michael Golamco (Always Be My Maybe) was submitted in 2023.
- Charles Wu (American Born Chinese) followed with a fresh draft in early 2024.
- Waititi, though juggling Star Wars, The Incal, Flash Gordon, and Klara and the Sun, reportedly sees Akira as the priority.
Hollywood rarely circles back this hard unless there's heat.
The deeper story? It's about timing.
The original Akira (1988) wasn't just anime—it was prophecy. Katsuhiro Otomo's dystopian Tokyo, with its psychics, street gangs, and government overreach, predicted a world unraveling at the seams. Today? That hits differently.
We're living in the timeline Akira warned us about—AI anxiety, youth uprisings, authoritarian creep. It's not just timely. It's urgent. That's why this remake might actually matter now. It's not nostalgia bait. It's a mirror.
And here's what makes Waititi's version compelling:
He doesn't want to Westernize it. Back in 2017, he insisted on casting Asian-American teens in the leads. That's not just woke checkboxing—it's a direct rebuke to Ghost in the Shell's whitewashing fiasco.
If he sticks the landing, this could be the first major Hollywood adaptation of anime that doesn't betray its roots. Big “if,” though.
This isn't Hollywood's first anime reckoning.
Remember Netflix's Cowboy Bebop? Critics gutted it. Audiences yawned. It tried to cosplay the original without capturing the soul. Death Note? Don't even.
But here's the twist: Akira isn't just another anime. It's the anime. The one that launched a thousand careers, from the Wachowskis to Nolan. It influenced The Matrix, Chronicle, Inception, Stranger Things—the whole digital dystopia aesthetic owes it.
If you're going to remake a god, you better bring thunder. Or at least Waititi's brand of lightning-in-a-bottle.
Would you risk remaking a sacred text?
Waititi might. And if he does it right—with respect, vision, and no studio interference—we might actually get the Akira adaptation that's been promised since Blockbuster was still a thing.
But until that update drops, we're still stuck in limbo.
Like Neo waiting for Morpheus. Like Kaneda waiting for Tetsuo to chill.
So—would you trust Taika with Tokyo? Drop your take below.
