Source: BleedingCool
Bleeding Cool has the heads up on a casting call for Akira that reveals some interesting departures from the source material. Besides the profession of Kaneda, nothing else seems to have strayed too far from the source material. What's your verdict, waiting for a trailer or were you simply unable to get behind this one from the jump?
Kaneda is a bar owner in Neo-Manhattan who is stunned when his brother, Tetsuo, is abducted by government agents led by The Colonel.
Desperate to get his brother back, Kaneda agrees to join with Ky Reed and her underground movement who are intent on revealing to the world what truly happened to New York City thirty years ago when it was destroyed. Kaneda believes their theories to be ludicrous but after finding his brother again, is shocked when he displays telekinetic powers.
Ky believes Tetsuo is headed to release a young boy, Akira, who has taken control of Tetsuo’s mind. Kaneda clashes with The Colonel’s troops on his way to stop Tetsuo from releasing Akira but arrives too late. Akira soon emerges from his prison courtesy of Tetsuo as Kaneda races in to save his brother before Akira once again destroys Manhattan island, as he did thirty years ago.
Also,
Acting Auditions are reporting that the following roles are locked after many of the below names were reportedly locked in lengthy negotiations. Of course I'd council you all to not take the casting list as being set in stone until announcements are made from the respective acting camps.
Kristen Stewart – Ky
Garret Hedlund – Kaneda
Helena Bonham Carter – Lady Miyako
Ken Watanabe – The Colonel
Akira (アキラ?) is a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, and starring the voices of Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama and Taro Ishida. The screenplay is based on Otomo's manga Akira.
The film depicts a dystopian Neo-Tokyo in 2019. The plot focuses on biker Tetsuo Shima (Nozomu Sasaki) and his psychic powers and the biker gang member Shotaro Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata), who tries to prevent Tetsuo from releasing the dangerous psychic Akira. While most of the character designs and basic settings were adapted from the original 2182-page manga epic, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, pruning much of the last half of the manga. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation and filmmaking in general.