Collider is reporting that the generally ill-advised live action Akira movie has new writers – Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus. You might know them as the guys who have credits on movies like Iron Man and Children of Men – and that Children of Men credit probably makes you feel pretty good, as that post-apocalyptic world was well realized and smart, so why wouldn’t their version of Akira be the same?
But this is one of those situations where just reading the IMDB credits is misleading, and one of those situations that reminds you that unless you have full knowledge of a movie’s script and development process, you should be careful about praising or condemning the writer. See, Ostby and Fergus got credit on Children of Men, but Alfonso Cuaron came in and rewrote the whole thing. Talking to me when his directorial debut, First Snow, was hitting, Fergus said that Cuaron was actually very unhappy with the credit situation on that film, a situation dictated by the WGA. As for Iron Man? I’m unclear, but that script was rewritten on the day every single day.
This isn’t meant to disparage these writers – that would be unfair, as I never read their original Children of Men script. But it does go to show that you should be very careful when pre-judging (negatively or positively) an upcoming movie based only on writers with whom you’re not actually that familiar.