Nerd News for Your Inner Geek
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas is known for screening amazing classic movies. For a showing of Akira last summer, an artist named Tyler Stout created this stunning poster. You can download a hi-res version (which makes an excellent desktop) here.
The project is supposed to be a faithful rendition of Katsuhiro Otomo's original manga, but I don't know how I feel about the location being changed from "Neo Tokyo" to "New Manhattan". Hopefully the creative team won't butcher the story, but I don't have my hopes up. You can find more in formation on Anime News Network.
There has been a spat of announcements in the past several months about anime rights being bought up by U.S. companies so they can get the film treatment stateside. Leo Dio picked up Akira and Dreamworks will be working on Ghost in the Shell. The latest claim comes from Vertigo Entertainment, who has procured the rights to Death Note, a psychological supernatural thriller series. I just devoured this 12-volume manga series, and will probably post a review later. The print version has been suceeded by an anime series (currently airing on Adult Swim) and also live-action movies.
Vertigo Entertainment isn't new to the adaptation space, having already worked on remakes of Asian works that became the films The Grudge, Dark Water, The Departed, and others.
I believe that anime and manga remakes will become increasingly common as a source of content for american studios. In the same way that we have seen a flurry of comic book adaptations, I think that this trend complements the increasing number of films stemming from graphic novels (V for Vendetta, Sin City, The 300, Watchmen). It could be incredibly cool to see many of my favorite works come to life, but I think I will also be in for my fair share of disappointment.
