It seems that after a hell of a lot of behind-the-scenes issues, Warner’s live-action version of Akira is finally going to go into production. However before that they need to sort out a cast, which is proving surprisingly tricky. After much machinations over who would play the main role of Kaneda, they finally settled on Garett Hedlund, and now it appears they’re hard at work looking for Kaneda’s friend, Tetsuo.
According to THR, a whole host of actors are testing for the role, including Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire), Paul Dano (Cowboys & Aliens, There Will Be Blood), Alden Ehrenreich (Tetro), D.J. Cotrona (Detroit 1-8-7, G.I.Joe 2: Retaliation), Logan Marshal Green (Devil, Prometheus), Toby Kebbell (RocknRolla, Control), Richard Madden (Game of Thrones), and Rami Malek (The Pacific, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2).
The film sees Kaneda trying to rescue Tetsuo from dangerous government experiments that are attempting to harness Tetsuo’s latent powers. However those telekinetic powers are also capable of unleashing the powerful being known as Akira.
It’s an interesting list of actors they’re testing and rather diverse, so doesn’t really give us much of a hint as to the direction they’re heading with the movie, other than that as all those actors are in their late 20s, Tetsuo is going to be older than the teen of the original manga and anime. A decision on who to hire should be made soon, with shooting starting on the Jaume Collet-Serra directed movie early in the new year.
General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser
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