It’s obvious that Hollywood is being much more budget conscious nowadays. 2011 saw a handful of big-budget films get shut down (Universal’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is perhaps the most notorious example.) If the news we’re reading today about the status of Warner Bros.’ troubled live-action AKIRA adaptation is true, 2012 will continue the trend of purse string-tightening.
The Hollywood Reporter is dishing the following: The AKIRA production offices in Vancouver are being closed and the crew currently at work there is being told to go on home. The main issue, according to THR’s sources, is the budget (what else?). Having already been chopped down to something in the $70 million range (after originally having a number hovering around an exorbitant $200 million), Warner Bros. and director Jaume Collet-Serra are currently trying to trim the dollar amount even more. Apparently the studio isn’t confidant a flick with Garret Hedlund and Kristen Stewart as its main stars can afford to have a price tag anywhere near its current $90 million. (Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter’s names have also been associated with the flick, although they’ve never been confirmed.)
This is just the latest setback for AKIRA, which has traveled across numerous roadblocks already; indeed, Collet-Serra (UNKNOWN) is the third man in the director’s chair, after Ruairi Robinson and Albert Hughes. If the issues can’t be resolved soon, there’s evidently a good chance that the production will be shut down permanently…
And many hardcore AKIRA fans may not consider that a negative thing at all.
Kristen Stewart