The Akira Project was first born back in July 2012 as an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for a fan trailer, in response to various reports that the Hollywood film adaptation was stuck in development hell. Rumors swirled of versions of the feature that sounded nothing like Otomo's original vision, and many feared that another iconic franchise would simply be, well..Lost in translation.
In an act of fan solidarity made possible by the power of crowdsourcing, the Indiegogo campaign never reached it's full funding goal, but succeeded in attracting swathes of artists from around the world that had their lives changed by Akira at some point or the other. While the initial concept was to simply show Kaneda riding his bike around Neo-Tokyo, the power of 40 artists from around the world allowed the vision of the fan trailer to expand significantly. Following 3 days of filming in Quebec back in late 2012, the project went quiet due to a lengthy post production period.
A year and a half later we finally have the final product, and as many fans probably feel - It's kind of what we wish any adaptation of beloved franchises would be in this day and age. I think this global initiative successfully expresses a frustration with studios typical handling of source material, and we hope that Akira will get a proper adaptation that lives up to Otomo's timeless creation someday.
The Akira Project is a crowd-sourced, non-profit project meant to create a live action fan trailer of AKIRA, the renowned manga-turned-anime film from the late 1980′s; a stunning example of both mediums as art forms. While Hollywood has been working on a live-action Akira movie for a few years now, we, as fans, wanted to take a shot at making our own adaptation. A chance to stick as close to the source material as possible. A chance to do Akira Justice.
After a year and a half in post-production, we are proud to present the project to Akira fans the world over. We hope to have done justice to the timeless work of Katsuhiro Otomo and look forward to, someday, seeing the full scope of the Akira story translated to the big screen as a live-action.
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