Jordan Peele Might Be Tapped to Direct Live-Action Akira

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After the overwhelmingly incredible success of Get Out, Jordan Peele has swiftly become a red-hot name for the director’s chair. And who expected that? We didn’t for sure, so unless you’re able to tell the future, you didn’t, either. But not surprisingly, Peele’s name has come up in a bid for a particularly high-profile new remake. According to a report from Tracking Board, Peele is a possible front-runner to direct Warner Bros. live-action remake of Akira, a landmark anime—arguably the best ever made. The adaptation, though, has been tossed around like a hot brick. The studio is said to be “moving aggressively” to get Peele onboard the project.

Picking Peele makes sense, given the much-maligned whitewashing of Ghost in the Shell—wouldn’t Peele be able to navigate such tricky race conversations in a way that would respectfully cast Japanese actors? He was certainly able to make it work in Get Out, becoming the first African-American writer-director to gross more than $100 million with their first feature in the process. And while it’s a sad reality that this is the conversation we have to have, otherwise we’ll get Ghost in the Shell all over again. Anyway, this is all speculation taken from CinemaCon in Vegas, which is hardly a reliable source. So it should be noted that these discussions are in very early stages, if they’re happening at all.