I don't know what an Akira is. Was I close?

I haven’t done much reporting on the planned adaptation of Akira before now, for two important reasons. One, I know jack sh*t about anime. In fact, I’m worried someone’s going to yell at me for even calling it anime. That’s accurate, right? Does it have to do with sex pillows? And two, Akira is up there with Justice League and the Arrested Development movie in terms of Hollywood’s great white whales that will probably never get made but people can’t shut up about. But it’s in Variety today with a new budget and a new director attached, so who knows? Come kick the football, dorks.  Here’s the most concise background I’ve seen, by way of Gamma Squad.

A few days ago we declared the bastardized Akira remake to be thankfully dead.  It turns out our pronouncement was a bit premature (that’s never happened before, baby. I swear).   To recap, the Hughes Brothers were originally attached to adapt books one through six in two movies with a total budget rumored to be $230 million.  Things were looking good until rumors started circulating Warner Brothers was going to cast Zac Efron or a bunch of other white guys as the teenaged, Japanese gang members.  Then the Hughes Brothers left the project.  Then we heard Keanu Reeves was in talks to play Kaneda but smartly walked away, perhaps after looking at a calender and realizing it’s been nearly two decades since he was a teenager.

Which brings us to today. The $230 million budget is down to $90 million, and the director WB has in mind is Spaniard Jaume Collet-Serra, director of Orphan, aka Secret Dwarf Hooker, starring that little girl who looked like Madonna, and the Liam-Neeson-is-dead flick, Unknown.  Wait, he’s Spanish and his name is “Jaume?” Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that pronounced… “homey?”

Warner Bros. is moving ahead with its remake of “Akira” in a fiscally sensible way, tapping reliable Spanish helmer Jaume Collet-Serra (“Orphan,” “Unknown”) to direct a live-action version of the anime cult hit at a lower revised budget of $90 million.
WB acquired the potential tentpole project for a seven-figure sum from Japanese manga publisher Kodansha in 2008.
Gary Whitta was the first writer attached, while Albert Torres and the team of Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby also contributed drafts. Steve Kloves, WB’s go-to scribe for its lucrative “Harry Potter” franchise, most recently polished Torres’ draft.
Set in New Manhattan, the cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments. [Variety]

Ha, ‘sensible.’ ‘Reliable.’  Those are not adjectives you use to get people excited about a movie. Those are compliments for cheap underwear and drug dealers.

UPDATE: YouTube version attached below if you’re having trouble with this player.

G4 has the trailer for the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World video game.  That’s right, a movie based on a graphic novel with the look of a video game is now getting a video game based on the movie. I guess that makes sense. As you can see, the game has a very retro, Legend of Zelda-meets-Double-Dragon vibe, even though it’s supposedly for Playstation 3 and XBox 360. Obviously, you get to play as Scott Pilgrim, battling Ramona’s seven evil exes and blah blah blah.

What I don’t understand about this project is why, when Ramona is such a hip indie chick who dyes her hair and wears glasses on her head, she’d be the type to expect a boyfriend to fight people over her like common Jersey trash.  And if she was attracted to that kind of guy, why she’d date a spindly sweater jockey like Michael Cera.  Then again, she does have seven ex-boyfriends, so she’s clearly a whore.   Jeez, bitch, seven boyfriends?  How old are you, like 45?  Are you a secret dwarf hooker?

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Opening this weekend:

Green Zone
Despite this looking exactly like one of those boring-ass Bourne movies, it’s been getting pretty good reviews, and actually sounds kind of interesting.  I’d say that’s a good thing, but I guarantee if it does well, studio execs are just going to interpret its success as “See? Audiences love shakey cam, ROFLJO!”

She’s Out of My League
I’m not the best spokesperson for the feminist point of view because I think all women should stay in the kitchen baking me pies and rubbing oil on their tits, but seriously, if you’re a boring douche like Jay Baruchel, you get to date a boring, mediocre-looking chick.  In all honesty, I can’t think of a concept more tired than this one, and there are a lot of tired concepts out there.  As many as there are tired puppies, at least.

Remember Me
This looked like a lame (and hackneyed) glorification of rich, whiny NYU asswipes even before I heard about the Secret Dwarf Hooker ending (don’t click that unless you want a spoiler).  The only reason I’d consider seeing this is to sit in the back, and every time Emilie De Ravin came on screen, shout, “CHAAAHLIE MOY BAAAAIBY NOOOOOOOAAAAAARR!”

And yes, that’s 100% phonetically accurate.  Trust me, I know what an Australian girl shouting “No” sounds like.

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Remember how we spoiled the ending of The Orphan, where mini Madonna turned out not to be a child at all, but a rare, fully-grown, sociopathic dwarf hooker?  Well, after the jump I’m going to spoil Robert Pattinson and the annoying chick from Lost‘s new movie (CHAAAHLIE MY BAIBY NOOOAARR!).  It’s called Remember Me, you know the one, the one that has the commercial where the annoying chick is like, “Sorry, I don’t date sociology majors,” and  RPattz is all “Good thing I’m undecided,” and the Lost chick is like, “What are you undecided about?”  And he’s all, “I dunno, the meaning of life, my sexuality; everything.”

Yeah, we’re gonna spoil that.  Admit it, you weren’t going to see it anyway.  It might not be secret dwarf hooker worthy, but it’s still pretty juicy like my thighs.

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Wow, there are some turkeys opening this week, folks.  I’m going to continue to recommend Up, Anvil, and The Hurt Locker.  Nonetheless, OPENING THIS WEEKEND:

The Ugly Truth
Katherine Heigl stars in an intelligence-insulting rom-com.  If you’ve seen the orgasm scene and you’re still considering seeing this, congratulations, I hate you.  Wanna save yourself 10 bucks?  Just look at the two pictures above back and forth really fast as you gradually lose the will to live.

G-Force
Fart jokes in the trailer, y’all!  Speaking of two pictures that communicate an entire movie, the best part of the press tour for this one was Nic Cage looking like this:

…while sitting next to this: 

Orphan
SECRET DWARF HOOKER!!!  Need I say more?  I actually kind of want to see this now.  …Hold me.

In the Loop
I haven’t covered this one much because the trailer bugged the living hell out of me.  But I’m told part of the reason for that is that the movie has an epic amount of swearing in it and is actually quite good.  I can’t confirm that it’s good, but I love swearing.  Check out this speech by Patton.  Now there was a guy who could swear.