Gary Oldman And Helena Bonham Carter in Akira?
The casting process is moving quickly on Warner Bros. upcoming live action adaptation of Akira. Tron: Legacy star Garrett Hedlund is reportedly the front runner for the role of Kaneda, and now Gary Oldman and Helena Bonham Carter are supposedly in the mix as well.
Twitch reports that Oldman has been offered the role of The Colonel and Bonham Carter is being asked to play Lady Miyako. Though the actors haven’t officially come on board yet, the report signals that director Jaume Collet-Serra is already looking to fill up secondary roles.
There is still a long list of characters that need to be cast, with Tetsuo, a young boy whose untapped psychic power becomes the central conflict of the story, near the top of that list. Actors like Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy were mentioned in a short list released earlier this year. Considering Hedlund’s name was also on that list, it’s entirely possible that one of those three might end up in this movie.
Oldman and Bonham Carter last worked together on Warner Bros’ “Harry Potter” films. Appropriately, “Potter” scribe Steve Kloves put the finishing touches on the “Akira” script, which was written by Albert Torres, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. It will be interesting to see how “Akira,” a cult 1988 anime movie, becomes Americanized in Hollywood. It’s said that the setting of Neo-Tokyo has already been switched to Neo-Manhattan.
Lord Shaper
