Rumor: High School Musical Heartthrob Offered Lead Role in Akira Movie

[MagicMouse]

If Akira is rated anything less than 'R', somebody dies.

But they will die in a very bloodless and nondescript way, right?

I don't follow actors at all, but I know that myself and many others will just not be able to get past his previous roles.

 

[Robert632]

I'm not going to say anything about Zac Efron. Instead, I ask the question, why the fuck do we need a live action Akira movie?

The real question is Why the fuck is the live action Akira movie going to be PG-13?

 

[Dead_Man]

..............BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*snort*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
*snicker*snort*

 

[The Ultimate 2]

My god this is Avatar the last Airbender and Dragonball all over again.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

I'll say this right here. Akira as an anime suck. The story just stopped as soon as Tetsuo escaped the lab. After that the point of the movie is completly forgotten. The mangas had explained what probably would have been another 3-4 hours of film. In which case it should have been an animated series and not a movie.

But anyways, they said that Efron was going to be Light Yagami for a North American Deathnoe live remake. That went nowhere. We'll see.

 

[A1]

Well, the Akira animated film was badly written, horribly paced and an hour too long so maybe the new live-action one will be okay. Impossible to judge Zac's suitability for the role as he's never done anything like this, but surely he wouldn't have been hired if people didn't think he could do it justice.

The live action one will be okay? There isn't much, if anything, to indicate that.

The whole thing totally reeks of racial foul play.

I don't know, the new Akira movie would have to be pretty awful to be worse than the old one. It's not the worst film ever or anything but certainly one of the most disproportionately crap ones compared to the amount of hype and critical acclaim it received. I saw the thing in the cinema when it came out (yes I'm that old), and god what a massive letdown it was.

There's no reason why the thing has to be Japanese - apart from, of course to appeal to irrationally Japan-obsessed fanboys. Any story that is any good at all can be easily transposed to any other setting with only superficial changes and still work, just look at how well the Shakespeare works adapt to different settings.

First of all, I never said anything at all about the original film. I'm just referring to this version.

No reason? How about respect for the source material, issues of racial sensitivity, issues of cultural sensitivity, issues of racial diversity, and issues of racial equality.

You also seem to be contradicting yourself. First you go on about how bad the original film allegedly is and then you seem to be comparing it to Shakespeare. And besides, if the whole PG-13 thing is accurate then it would seem very likely that the changes are going to be far from superficial.

At this point there doesn't seem to be any real reason to believe that this film is going to be anything other than a repeat of Dragonball Evolution or worse.

 

[Flying Pilgrim]

I heard people talking about the possibility of Zac Efron being in a Deathnote movie but this? This is torture...

 

[BonsaiK]

Well, the Akira animated film was badly written, horribly paced and an hour too long so maybe the new live-action one will be okay. Impossible to judge Zac's suitability for the role as he's never done anything like this, but surely he wouldn't have been hired if people didn't think he could do it justice.

The live action one will be okay? There isn't much, if anything, to indicate that.

The whole thing totally reeks of racial foul play.

I don't know, the new Akira movie would have to be pretty awful to be worse than the old one. It's not the worst film ever or anything but certainly one of the most disproportionately crap ones compared to the amount of hype and critical acclaim it received. I saw the thing in the cinema when it came out (yes I'm that old), and god what a massive letdown it was.

There's no reason why the thing has to be Japanese - apart from, of course to appeal to irrationally Japan-obsessed fanboys. Any story that is any good at all can be easily transposed to any other setting with only superficial changes and still work, just look at how well the Shakespeare works adapt to different settings.

First of all, I never said anything at all about the original film. I'm just referring to this version.

No reason? How about respect for the source material, issues of racial sensitivity, issues of cultural sensitivity, issues of racial diversity, and issues of racial equality.

You also seem to be contradicting yourself. First you go on about how bad the original film allegedly is and then you seem to be comparing it to Shakespeare. And besides, if the whole PG-13 thing is accurate then it would seem very likely that the changes are going to be far from superficial.

At this point there doesn't seem to be any real reason to believe that this film is going to be anything other than a repeat of Dragonball Evolution or worse.

Cultural sensitivity? I can only see good cultural things coming from Akira being divorced from Japanese culture, maybe the new version will be less creepily misogynist as a result. "Respect for the source material" obviously doesn't stack up either because the people making the film would had to have asked the makers of the source material for permission to even do this, and it was obviously granted, so if it's okay by them, then they've given the source material all the respect it requires. As for racial issues that's just laughably silly and I'm not even going to go there, aside from that if you believe that's an issue, you obviously feel that no media object should ever be remade by another culture ever, so I guess you're against Bollywood, Spaghetti Western, and.... wait for it.... Anime.

My point with Shakespeare wasn't to compare it to Akira, my point was only that if source material is any good, it can stand up while being reinterpreted into different settings just fine, as long as the people doing it are competent enough at it, so it's therefore stupid for people to whine about this new interpretation that's going to happen without even giving it a chance, especially if they think the source material is good. I haven't read the Akira book/comic/whatever so I don't actually know if the source material is decent or not. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I wasn't passing a judgement on that, that wasn't really the point of what I was saying.

 

[Sinspiration]

Well I would say Akira was the best anime ever made so either way turning it into a film is going to be a bad move but now they just seem to want to spit all over it.

Best Anime..? I'd have to disagree on a personal level, but on a general level even I would have to say that this is a big bad no-no to do to something like Akira. It was too good to be screwed up this badly.

 

[Lucifron]

PG-13.

Zac Efron.

...

Well, fuck that.

 

[tzimize]

Huh. And here I thought casting Hayden Christensen as Anakin was the worst possible casting idea in the history of time. This might actually knock it down from its sky-high pillar of shame.

 

[eLdritch247]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jafd97yJFOI

this is all there is to say about this horrible, horrible idea...

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Wow, the rare "Fail before creation". Nice.

Seriously, live action reboot to an Anime to be led by a mouseketeer? Seriously who in their right mind would think this would be an idea that would sell to people and why do they still have a job?

Pretty much my thoughts

 

[Julianking93]

First he's offered as "Light" in Death Note, now this??????

WHAT?????!!!!!