13 Announced Movies That Will Never Actually Happen

11. Akira

Hollywood has been trying to adapt the legendary 1988 anime Akira into a live-action blockbuster film for over 15 years, with at least five different directors and ten different writers attached at various stages.

Most recently, Thor: Ragnarok's Taika Waititi has been mentioned as a possible director, but considering the enormous complexity involved in adapting such an off-the-wall, singular property into a marketable Hollywood product, it's easy to imagine him passing on it.

There are so many roadblocks working against this film ever happening: Hollywood will want to cast a white A-list actor which will result in a heap of negative PR, they'll want it to be PG-13 despite the clearly R-rated nature of the material, and they'll strip away all of the fascinating - and distinctly Japanese - historical context.

Basically it's no surprise this one's been a tough nut to crack creatively, because maybe, just maybe, some movies don't actually need to be made. There is a version of this story that could work, but Hollywood won't want to make it, especially not at the price point it would require.