Albert Hughes says his live-action Akira must be PG-13

I’m pretty skeptical of The Hughes Brothers’ upcoming live-action adaptation of AKIRA, as I’m sure many of you are. FROM HELL and THE BOOK OF ELI weren’t necessarily bad by any means, but not particularly noteworthy either. AKIRA is something of a beast, and I’m not sure the pair is up to task.

And now they’ll be stifled further with a PG-13 rating, something Albert Hughes recently said in a radio interview that the studio is demanding.

“The first thing they said to me was it had to be PG-13,” Hughes said and then followed up with labeling it as either being “a challenge” or a “hind-ridge.”

Hughes also goes on to say that if the movie is split in half (as the source material is over 2,000 pages), that he and his brother are “not into sequels” and they’d probably leave duties to someone else. That would leave the project rather disjointed, as you’re essentially splitting one film in half and leaving for the second part.

As for the PG-13? I guess sadly, that’s to be expected in this day and age, as film integrity will almost ALWAYS be sacrificed for box office receipts, even with a movie that is clearly not going to have mainstream appeal like AKIRA. Might as well do it right if you ask me.