Wrath of the Titans actor Toby Kebbell (Control, RocknRolla) was once up for the part of Tetsuo in Warner Bros.' live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk manga and anime Akira -- but with the project stalled, he unleashed some real talk on the direction the studio intended on taking the big-budget franchise. Among WB's plans: They wanted to adapt the anime and not the richer source material of the mangas, and planned on taking certain liberties with key character relationships to boot. “I was like, ‘The point is that Tetsuo can’t comprehend how someone who isn’t his brother could love him so much — and that’s where his wrath and his rage come from. Do you not see that? Why have you made them brothers? What the fuck are you doing?’” [IFC via Collider]
Back when Movieline posted the bonkers-adorable trailer for genre master Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!!, about -- what else -- children studying at a school for ninjas, it seemed unlikely that the family-friendly manga and anime adaptation would go much farther than the genre/foreign crowd. However, that was before plans were reportedly in the works to adapt Miike's film into an Americanized remake. After all, every generation deserves their own 3 Ninjas!
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From the mind that brought you Ichi the Killer, The Happiness of the Katakuris, Sukiyaki Western Django, and most recently, the gorgeous samurai pic Thirteen Assassins comes... a goofy children's martial arts comedy about youngsters at an academy for ninjas! After the jump, watch the trailer for Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!!, two minutes of silliness based on the long-running anime series Nintama Rantaro.
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Man, directors are dropping like flies out of high profile projects these days. Hot on the heels of David O. Russell's departure from Uncharted: Drake's Fortune comes news that Albert Hughes is leaving Warner Bros.' Akira adaptation. Chime in with your favorite proposed Akira director below, but consider the bigger question for now: Just what kind of Akira movie does Warner Bros. want to make?
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