Warner Bros has unveiled that the WB event film that was hanging around May 14, 2021 is now moving to May 21, 2021 and will be Taika Waititi’s feature take on famed cult manga Akira.
The Thor: Ragnarok helmer is officially directing, as Deadline first broke back in 2017, and the pic produced by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way shingle recently received a $18.5 million tax credit from California. On its new date, Akira will smack up against Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4. 
Today’s release date news arrives after Thursday’s headlines that Waititi is stepping away from directing the Michael Jackson pet chimpanzee pic Bubbles.
The live-action Akira has been gestating for a number of years as an adaptation of anime artist Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic six-volume graphic novel; it was made into a famed 1988 anime film directed by Otomo.
Pic’s logline: A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
Producers on Akira are Andrew Lazar, Jennifer Davisson and DiCaprio. Waititi and Michael Golamco are writing.
