Hundreds Of 'Akira' Fans Just Created The Best Live-Action Trailer For The Anime Classic

For fans of the manga and feature film alike, a fan-made 'Akira' trailer that might be as close as we'll get to the real thing.

by Emerson Rosenthal

May 12, 2014, 8:50pm

Shots. Fired.

The Internet, in all its omnipresent glory, just launched a full-scale attack on Hollywood. In the exceedingly elegant form of a single, fan-made movie trailer, a film that has been faithfully and frequently failed by Tinseltown has been baptised in the canonical waters of crowd-sourcing. That's right, the Internet just premiered its own, true-to-fiction, live-action trailer for Akira, produced entirely by fans of the original manga and animated feature film, and it just might be the coup de grâce we all knew was coming.

I know. I know.

The actual story begins the same way as the source material: two friends enjoying an evening out decide to make something more of it. Enter producer/director Nguyen-Anh Nguyen and Osric Chau of Montreal-based production company CineGround. Dissatisfied with Hollywood's long-winded and fruitless attempts to bear a live-action version of Katsuhiro Otomo's internationally-beloved manga series and animated feature, Nguyen and Chau decided to take matters into their own hands.

From Nguyen: "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." It was a sentiment echoed by hundreds of Akira-adorers the world over, and thus, the Akira Project was born.

"We launched an Indiegogo campaign in July 2012 as part of a crowd sourcing effort to make this project come to life. Many people contributed not just financially but offered their time and talent to help the production that was shot in Montreal, Quebec from November 2-5th 2012. What started out as a simple idea," writes Nguyen, "[…] became a global endeavour, filled with adventures and hurdles, involving more than 40 artists in 12 different countries." One year-and-a-half later, the fully fan-funded Live Action Akira Trailer is online and, within hours, already reaching critical viral mass.

So, what does it all mean? For one thing, with unparallelled VFX & GCI capacities brought down to the prosumer level, Hollywood's inability to cap its bloating Akira budget (which fluctuates between $60 and $140 million) just sounds silly. And an East-meets-West update on the source material's original setting? Whitta, please—we won't be happy until we get the real thing. All 2000+ pages of it, no less.

Will helming producers Leonardo Dicaprio and Andrew Lazar open their eyes to the possibilities of giving the people what they want? Or will Hollywood turn another deaf ear to the siren songs of the future? One thing is certain: given a few friends, a common goal, and a network connection, these days, anything is possible.

Below, more of our favorite moments from the Live Action Akira Trailer: