Speaking to Yahoo, director George Miller confirmed that Warner Bros. did gauge the Mad Max: Fury Road helmer's interest in Akira but he' simply too busy. "There was talk of it, but I've got so many things on my dance card, I don't have the time to do everything. " But was Miller's disinterest in Akira partly due to the fact that Fury Road was inspired by it? More than one anime fan has pointed out the similarities between the two films. "I don't know where that came from. I'm a huge fan of anime and the precision of that and to some degree Manga, even though I don't read Japanese, but just the aesthetic of it. So Akira might have been one of the many movies but it certainly wasn't one that directly influenced Mad Max."
After numerous starts and stops, the live-action Akira film is back on at WB with Marco Ramirez (Daredevil, Sons of Anarchy) writing the script. There's currently no cast or director attached to the project.