The PG-13 Live-Action Akira

Sound like the dumbest fucking thing you've heard today? Hollow-wood knows no bounds, however the live-action Akira director, Albert Hughes (Book of Eli), says he looks at it as a challenge, and plans to ensure the movie feels "like a rated-R movie."

"I get excited about some subversive things you can do with being held down by something like that, or being censored," Hughes told The Kevin and Josh Movie Show. Hughes went on to say he was only directing the first film; there is a second, live-action Akira movie planned. He also said the movie is not yet in production.

Akira is a classic anime based on the manga of the same name by Katsuhiro Otomo. The movie saw a limited theatrical release in America but, along with colorized reprints by Marvel Comics subsidiary, Epic, Akira almost single-handedly jump-started America's obsession with manga and anime. That movement largely hit its zenith in the 1990s.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010