25 Amazing Concept Designs From Sci-Fi Movies In Development Hell
2. Akira
Katsuhiro Otomo's animated adaptation of his manga series Akira represented a watershed moment in the history of the medium. Not only did it introduce to Western audiences the potential for animation to be used to tell stories for adults, it also had a broad influence on the science fiction genre as a whole. Its popularity around the world inevitably led to interest from Hollywood early on, and Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Akira way back in 2002. But given the scope of the movie's action (in particular the finale, a spectacle which would surely eat up much of the budget of even the biggest blockbusters) getting the project green lit and into production has been fraught with difficulties. Until 2013 the live-action remake of Akira lay in the hands of director Ruairí Robinson, who we have to thank for these concept paintings. Robinson clearly understood what made the original so visually stunning - the neon-soaked cityscapes are rendered in these images with the same attention to detail as Otomo's original work. Robinson's departure from the project derived from an all-too-familiar problem: " was a movie that couldnt get the budget below two hundred million for the first good drafts of our script, so that became too difficult to make." More recently Jaume Collet-Serra has taken up the directorial mantle, but problems getting the project into production persist as Warner Bros. continue to battle to lower the budget (a recent report suggesting that they are only willing to invest $65 million in the film - well below even the $90 million Collet-Serra proposed). Given that a film such as Akira deserves - and demands - the kind of funding usually granted to huge summer blockbusters, it's perhaps for the best that it remains in development hell until Warner Bros agree to offer the financing it truly deserves.
