Director Ruairi Robinson announced in 2008 he was teaming with Whitta to adopt the manga for live-action , breaking the narrative out over two films with the first to have been completed and released by 2009 . Producer Andrew Lazar said that the first film would cover volumes 1 through 3 of the manga , with the rest covered in the second film . Whitta , in a 2015 interview , said that the story would have taken place in a futuristic Japan-owned Manhattan , renaming the region as New Tokyo . This would allow them to have used a mixture of Western and Asian cultures and actors as to avoid concerns that they would be whitewashing the project . Robinson left the project in 2009 and was replaced by directors Allen and Albert Hughes , though later Albert Hughes went solo with the project by 2011 . They used Whitta 's script with modifications by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby with an aim for a PG-13 rating . Around 2011 , a version of the '' Akira '' script leaked online ; though it was unclear if this was Whitta 's or Fergus/Ostby 's version , the scripts deviated significantly from the source material in what was considered a negative way according to '' IGN '' , such as making Akira a " psychotic murderous creepy child " , inclusion of heavy-handed references to the September 11 attacks , and characters written in a misogynistic fashion . Around this same time , casting calls for the film led to accusations of whitewashing . Shortly after these events , Hughes left the project citing " amicable creative differences "
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Akira (planned film)