Akira resurrected again?

From a department I like to call Damn it so much...apparently the on-again, off-again live-action adaptation of Akira is back on again, at current. There had been rumors of concerns about the project's estimated $90 million budget, but now the project is going ahead with director Jaume Collet-Serra.

Serra, who has two projects with Liam Neeson on the horizon (the airplane-based action thriller Non-Stop, with a tentative February 2014 release) and Run All Night, now in pre-production), is working on not only trimming down the budget but trying to work the project back into his schedule, which would push the start of shooting to Spring 2014 at earliest. 

While I am among the legions who think this is a monumentally bad idea, at least enough time has passed for Keanu Reeves to fall away from the project. Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy) has been on board since late 2011 in the lead role, but his involvement is ultimately going to come down to scheduling as well. Such is life in development hell.

I would say get back to me when the film is again on the back burner (where it belongs), because I'm not exactly sure I have enough left in me to make fun of the inevitable big money bomb this is going to wind up being. Don't get me wrong, I'll still have enough left to turn my nose up at it when I see it in a bargain bin or impulse rack somewhere, but yeah, either make the damn thing or let it die already.

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