The casting rumours are currently flying thick and fast for Warner Bros’ long in the works manga adaptation AKIRA. So far we have had Garrett Hedlund as Kaneda, Kirsten Stewart as Kei, a number of people up for Tetsuo including Ezra Miller and Paul Dano, and finally Gary Oldman for The Colonel. Now it seems Oldman is out as Ken Watanabe (INCEPTION) has thrown his hat in the ring for the role and WB seem intent on getting him.

This is quite a good fit actually and credit to Warner Bros for actually going for someone with some ethnicity after all the controversy over whitewashing the Asian characters. The film will still be in New Manhattan instead of Neo-Tokyo but never mind.

For those who unfamiliar with the character, The Colonel as he is known in the western version, is the head of an ongoing government project which was responsible for the mass destruction unleashed by Akira’s power thirty years before the start of the story. Jaume Collet-Serra is still attached to direct and there is no word as yet on a start date for shooting.

More as we get it… 

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