The Hollywood Reporter says that Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Brothers is putting the manga classic “Akira” into production for a theatrical release under DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way. 

 Gary Whitta has been hired to write the adaptation…Akira originated in 1988 as a manga and then as an animated film co-written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story was set in a neon-lit futuristic post-nuclear war Tokyo in 2019 where a teen biker gang member is subjected to a government experiment which unleashes his latent powers. The gang’s leader must find a way to stop the ensuing swathe of destruction.With its mature themes and cutting edge animation, “Akira” was a milestone movie in anime and even animation circles, and led the way for anime making inroads into Western pop culture in the 1990s.