Live-action Akira in the works

After over a decade of being in development hell, it has been suggested that the finishing touches are being put to a script for a live adaptation of the classic Japanese anime Akira.

In news that is likely to delight as many fanboys as make others want to telekinetically explode the brains of all those involved, it looks as though a live adaptation of Akira isn't too far away.

Website Collider is quoting a "trustworthy source" to confirm that screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, the scribes behind Children of Men and Iron Man, are near completing their script for the film.

Details on the adap are scarce, but so far we are told that the film will be relocated from a post-apocalyptic "Neo Tokyo" to a post-apocalyptic "Neo Manhattan" and will definitely feature the famous red bike of the original.

The project has been languishing in movie limbo ever since Sony tried to kickstart a live-action version in the nineties before eventually giving up when they realised that their vision would cost more than $300 million.

More recently, however, Warner Bros have got in on the act and so began casting rumours of Leo DiCaprio (as biker Kaneda) and Joseph Gordon Levitt in the lead role as Tetsuo.

While these particular rumours have been refuted, the script-writing of Fergus and Ostby has been all but confirmed which means, once the studio have finished tinkering with the final draft, we should start to hear news about which directors are fighting for the opportunity to helm the project.

Whoever takes it on, it is sure to be a massive event movie, with some saying that it may even have to be split into two parts.