Director of WhiteWashed Akira Remake Says Something Eurocentric/Racist About Japanese Cinema
In interviews with entertainment news websites Collider and ComingSoon, director Jaume Collet-Serra, who was previously in talks to work on Warner Brothers' stalled live-action Akira film project, mentioned that he's still working on the film, and that he hopes it will be his next one.
Variety reported last August that Collet-Serra was possibly rejoining the project, stating that, if he returned, he would direct the project in Spring 2014. Warner stalled the project in 2012 to revise the script so it would be less costly. Akira manga creator and anime director Katsuhiro Otomo was reportedly going to oversee the project as executive producer.
Of the adaptation, Collet-Serra told ComingSoon that he will have to be "respectful of the source material" and that he hopes to "take the spirit of it and adapt it. It will be as different as the anime was from the manga." Of the changes he hopes to make he said:
"I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don't think the main characters are the protagonists... That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward."
Collet-Serra has worked on two movies since his talks in August, the second of which, Non-Stop, will be out in theaters on February 28.
Source
Source of the original quote from the interview which reads:
CS: And we all have that original anime, it's there, nothing can sully it, so if you were going to do it in live-action one would hope you would bring something new to the table. What is it you are bringing specifically that is going to make it yours?
Collet-Serra: I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don't think the main characters are the protagonists. What I'm hoping is to bring characters.
CS: That's true. It's one of those strange stories where you literally never see the main character that is the namesake of the film!
Collet-Serra: Nobody's interesting. Tetsuo's interesting because weird sh*t happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward.
I thought this thing died in development hell years ago. WHY WON'T IT STAY DEAD, DAMN IT.
Variety reported last August that Collet-Serra was possibly rejoining the project, stating that, if he returned, he would direct the project in Spring 2014. Warner stalled the project in 2012 to revise the script so it would be less costly. Akira manga creator and anime director Katsuhiro Otomo was reportedly going to oversee the project as executive producer.
Of the adaptation, Collet-Serra told ComingSoon that he will have to be "respectful of the source material" and that he hopes to "take the spirit of it and adapt it. It will be as different as the anime was from the manga." Of the changes he hopes to make he said:
"I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don't think the main characters are the protagonists... That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward."
Collet-Serra has worked on two movies since his talks in August, the second of which, Non-Stop, will be out in theaters on February 28.
Source
Source of the original quote from the interview which reads:
CS: And we all have that original anime, it's there, nothing can sully it, so if you were going to do it in live-action one would hope you would bring something new to the table. What is it you are bringing specifically that is going to make it yours?
Collet-Serra: I hope that I can bring strong characters. In the original source material, I don't think the main characters are the protagonists. What I'm hoping is to bring characters.
CS: That's true. It's one of those strange stories where you literally never see the main character that is the namesake of the film!
Collet-Serra: Nobody's interesting. Tetsuo's interesting because weird sh*t happens to him, and Kaneda is so two-dimensional. That's part of the Japanese culture, they never have strong characters. They're used as a way to move the other philosophy forward.
I thought this thing died in development hell years ago. WHY WON'T IT STAY DEAD, DAMN IT.