Tonight on Hollywood After Dark, we dive into one of the most chaotic news dumps in recent memory. First up, Akira is dead—again. Taika Waititi’s long-delayed live-action adaptation has been officially scrapped after Warner Bros. lost the rights, which have now reverted to Kodansha. After 20 years of development hell, it looks like Akira will need a whole new team, a new studio, and probably a miracle.
Meanwhile, The Batman Part II has finally turned in its homework. Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin completed the script, teasing fans with a cryptic “Partners in Crime (Fighters)” caption and sparking rumors about Robin’s possible debut. Production is expected to start in late 2025, with a release set for October 2027—just in time for your kids to forget who the hell Pattinson’s Batman even was.
Also making headlines: Denis Villeneuve is now officially directing the next James Bond film… but only one. Amazon MGM brought him in without giving him final cut, so we’ll see whether this is visionary Bond or branded content. And if that wasn’t enough IP chaos, Michael Bay is back. He’s pitched a new Transformers movie to Paramount—yes, he pitched them—and is developing it as a high-stakes bid to save the franchise from post-Beasts burnout.
Finally, James Cameron has thrown a cinematic haymaker at Christopher Nolan, accusing Oppenheimer of being a “moral cop-out” for not showing the human toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cameron’s working on his own Hiroshima film, Ghosts of Hiroshima, and promises to go where Nolan wouldn’t: straight into the crater.
Hollywood After Dark 