Like all people with basic cognitive functions, we have been quietly dreading the inevitable Hollywood version of Akira, which will most likely be terrible. Unless, that is, the people involved with the project take a few lessons from this gorgeous fan-produced trailer. Can somebody hire you to direct the real thing already?
In July of 2012, Montreal-based production company Cineground began a crowdfunding campaign for The Akira Project, the goal of which was to produce a trailer that faithfully adapted the manga and anime in a way that Hollywood probably never would (remember, last time we heard tell of the Akira movie, it was being set in Manhattan with a white guy as the lead). While they didn’t raise all the money they wanted, a year and a half later, they have the above trailer to show for it. You wouldn’t even be able to tell that they were under budget, because dang, is this thing spectacular. Heck, they even got the guy who plays Kevin Tran in Supernatural to be Kaneda. You gotta admit, that’s pretty solid casting.
“As fans, it always pains us to see old school masterpieces being destroyed by the corporate nature of Hollywood; where numbers often prevail over originality,” producer and director Nguyen-Anh Nguyen said on the original Indiegogo page back in 2012. “We want to do this because we want to see the vision of Akira come to life in the most realistic way possible and show that there is a public out there for honest, original manga adaptations.”
And honest this is — while it’s clearly more concerned with faithfully bringing the source material to life than it is with convincing an average theater-going audience to watch a full-length version (which is to say that it’s better than most cinematic trailers out today, because let’s be real, most of these things give away way too much of the actual movie), it’s also exactly what we could ever want out of an actual Akira adaptation. Too bad it’s only three minutes long.
(via Cartoon Brew and The Mary Sue, image via Cineground)
- Warner Brothers just refuses to let that Akira adaptation die
- Ugh, remember when people thought Zac Efron would play Kaneda?
- This fan film was pretty great, too
Published: May 12, 2014 06:04 pm