Hughes Brothers To Take On AKIRA?

Book of Eli team in negotiations

By Chris Beveridge (Source: Mania.com)

Vulture has the news that Warner Bros. is in negotiations with the Hughes brothers, who are coming off of a good run with their January theatrical release of the Book of Eli, to take on the Akira movie. The movie, which is being produced by Appian Way, has some good things going for it. The script is being worked on by the people behind Iron Man (Mark FErgus and Hawk Osby) and Warner Bros. has given some indication that they're going to treat the source material right by making this a two-picture deal so that nothing is lost in the adaptation.

The original manga for Akira has seen a variety of releases in the US over the years, starting with Marvel's release of it in thirty-six individual oversized full color comics in the late 80's. It later saw release again from Dark Horse Comics without the color being applied to it and unflopped as well. Dark Horse lost the license to it last year and it's now being released anew by Kodansha Comics, though it's essentially the same thing as what Dark Horse put out.

The anime movie, which was a very early release in the US from its Japanese release, is mostly considered out of print in the US. Last year saw the release of the movie on Blu-ray in a worldwide push by Bandai Visual with what gave fans arguably the best presentation of the film but one of the best audio experiences of any high definition title to date as Bandai Visual went above and beyond with its technical aspects. No DVD release accompanied it however and the Blu-ray edition is hard to find.