In 2019, Warner Bros. announced that Taika Waititi will direct its live-action adaptation of the popular Japanese anime Akira. However, there has been little to no information on the film since then.
Now, four years later, there is finally an update on the highly anticipated film and it sounds promising. Justin Kroll, a senior Deadline reporter, recently put up a tweet to his Twitter page where he revealed that Waititi is still attached to the project. He stated that the filmmaker put the film's development on hold to work on Thor: Love and Thunder and he is now set to resume work on it.
In his words, "Since everyone is wondering where his STAR WARS film is, if I were a betting man my guess is Taika's next movie is his AKIRA movie at WB, which he put on shelf to do L&T. He never left the film and word is script should be into studio soon. Again nothing set in stone as the film would go through regular process before greenlight including figuring out a budget but sounds like all his focus is on that project."
Warner Bros. Discovery's attempts to deliver a live-action Akira film have encountered many hurdles ever since the studio bought the rights in 2002. So far, a total of 5 directors and 10 writers have joined and left the project. Before Warner Bros., Sony Pictures Entertainment had a go at the franchise. The entertainment company acquired its rights in the 1990s but couldn't bring its plans to fruition reportedly due to financial reasons.