The fact that this was even considered disturbs me immensely. Why take something that is already perfect and try to destroy it? While the anime was amazing, it paled in comparison to the manga's thick plot and numerous political parallels. Rumor has it that this will extend beyond one movie (they're supposedly making two, three graphic novels' worth of plot in each) to keep true to the manga's original story, but I still have a bad feeling DiCaprio will ruin it with his new setting. 'New Manhattan'? Seriously? The setting was very vital to the time period it was created in, and (in the simplest of explanations) Tokyo's involvement was not chance or accident. Many World War II references were included in Akira, everything from blunt statements to the bombed stadium Tetsuo basically exploded in -- will Leo keep those in? Will he try to make the same statement about the corrupt youth of today, or will he take the teens out of the equation completely? Adolescent instability was a huge part of Akira, as witnessed in Tetsuo's need to be in complete control of himself and his surroundings, as well as his desire to fight his own battles -- it's an obvious stage of rebellion all teenagers go through, where they want to sever all ties to authority figures and gain independence.There were rumors that Joseph Gordon Levitt was slated to play Tetsuo, and Leonardo DiCaprio as Kaneda, but neither of those have been confirmed (Levitt himself says "... that’s really just a rumor. They don’t have a script or anything." - source). All that has been confirmed is the writer, Gary Whitta, and the director, Ruairi Robinson, as well as DiCaprio's producing team with Andrew Lazar and Jennifer Davisson. I have little faith in this project, no matter how good of an actor DiCaprio is, because he's taking out key elements of the original story's plot and replacing it with something the average stupid Americans can understand (or at least pretend to understand).
