Warner Bros. was considering a Naruto live-action as early as 2006, according to anime industry veteran Amanda Nanawa (GM @ Funimation Channel and Comcast, Programming Manager @ Anime Network (ADV Films)). In response to a post about the fate of the Akira live-action, Nanawa typed on LinkedIn:
“I have a similar story to yours but this one was back in 2006 when Bleach & Naruto were hot on Toonami & adult swim. Viz was approached by Warner Bros to ask which IP would be the best to adapt to live-action. I think WB wanted to adapt Naruto because they felt it would go down the same path as the Harry Potter movies. But I countered & said Bleach because unless there’s a writer & director attached to a Naruto project & they worked great with kids (like Chris Columbus), it wouldn’t work. It’s super problematic when working with kids.
Fast forward to today & now Naruto is in pre-prod at Lionsgate. And Bleach live-action (redux?) is in development at WB. Funny how these things turn out.“
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The message came in response to Dallas Middaugh, former Head of Events and Manga at Crunchyroll, who shared that agents from Chernin Entertainment, Crunchyroll’s sister company at the time (under Chernin Group ownership), had reached out to him about how to secure the rights to develop an Akira live-action project. “Yes, I know what you need to do,” Middaugh recounted, “but you’re not going to like it.” He described regularly meeting with Kodansha (Akira publisher) every six months to “present information about your company, express your interest in Akira, maybe take them out for a nice dinner, then go home.“
Middaugh went on to write:
“‘By about the two year mark, they will start to believe you might be serious about this. If you’re lucky, the rights for Akira will be up for grabs by then. If not, you’ll at least have made a good impression and there may be something else you want to get from them. Have you heard of Attack on Titan? That’s a good one.’
‘But,’ they said, ‘we work for Peter Chernin.’
‘Yes, I know. It doesn’t matter. That’s what you have to do. It’s all about building relationships over time.’
If they’d listened to me, maybe they would be in a good place to buy the rights to Akira, now that they’re available again. Or maybe they could have just had Peter [Chermin] call the owner of Kodansha and done a deal. Who knows?“
Japanese Producer Says He Saw Akira’s Live-Action Script and Is Unsurprised Rights Were Given Up
Akira ultimately ended up in development hell for over two decades at Warner Bros., which has now relinquished the rights back to Kodansha. Producers and talent are reportedly “lining up to attach themselves to the property in preparation to be presented to select studios and streamers,” reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Curiously, following the scrapped Akira project, film director, writer, and producer Kazuaki Kiriya shared that he’d attended two meetings and had seen scripts, adding he wasn’t surprised that the project fell through (via X):
“I can say this now, but I attended two meetings about this project in Hollywood. I also read the revised script twice. I won’t say much, but honestly, I wasn’t surprised that the film rights were given up, and I thought that was how it should be. Why did they have to sell a Japanese original work to Hollywood in the first place? I think it would have been difficult with Japan’s live-action technology and budget at the time. But it is definitely possible now with Japan’s technology. Now is the time for Japanese people to join forces and send this work out to the world.“
Source: LinkedIn
Featured image from Naruto stage show: © Masashi Kishimoto, Scott / Shueisha © Live Spectacle NARUTO Production Committee 2023
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