The past few weeks have seen some excellent progress being made on the Akira remake front. Garrett Hedlund has been selected to star as one of the film’s two male leads, given the role of Kaneda. Gary Oldman and Helena Bonham Carter have both been approached to star. And just last week, Kristen Stewart was offered the lead female role of Kei, which I think is a brilliant choice.
News now comes from Collider that there are some great names in the mix for the other male lead, Tetsuo, with seven names having tested for the role yesterday and the day before: Logan Marshall-Green, D.J. Cotrona, Toby Kebbell, Richard Madden, Rami Malek, and Paul Dano and Alden Ehrenreich retesting for the part.
Unknown’s Jaume Collet-Serra is taking the helm for the project, which has a $90m. budget, and it’s definitely something I’m looking forward to. I think Hedlund and Stewart are both going to be awesome in this, and the list of co-leads has some excellent names on it.
Personally, my vote is torn between Marshall-Green and Kebbell. I admit I don’t have much experience with the others’ roles, but Marshall-Green and Kebbell have both been so great in what I’ve seen them in that I’m rooting for either of them.
Marshall-Green may not be a household name, but with a leading role in Ridley Scott’s upcoming Prometheus, I think he’s going to be quickly rising by the time next summer rolls around.
And Kebbell was nothing short of brilliant in Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, and I’d love to see him in more and more roles in the future. We’ll next be seeing him in the Clash of the Titans sequel, Wrath of the Titans, next March. And he’s currently filming the indie film The East, alongside Ellen Page, Alexander Skarsgård, and Brit Marling, and that stellar cast makes me think that that film’s going to be so good.
With the Akira testing having been done over the past two days, I’m hoping it won’t be long before we’ll get confirmation of who’s been chosen. This is definitely a film to be keeping your eye on, and as always, we’ll be bringing you more news as and when we get it.
