Fang Zei said:
I thought the story was all ready to go back in November. He's the director, not the writer. I know the screenplay itself is a different matter, and it does take time to iron it out, but they've had the better part of a year now to work on it. I'm scratching my head as to why he would still need more time.
It can take a hell of a time to get things right in a screenplay. Live action 'Akira' has been written and re-written for 10 years and the latest version of the script for 'Mad Max 4' finally got greenlit after a quarter century, also 'Watchmen' and 'Les Mis' took about 25 years to get right too.
It was worth the wait for those last two and I'm happy to wait longer for 'Akira' as it sounds like the current team behind it haven't a clue. I'm more than happy to wait another year or two for Star Wars, rather that it being rushed.
A scary amount of top level blockbusters go into production these days without a finished script nevermind a good script. Matt Damon said he turned down the 4th Bourne film because they didn't have a script. The money offered was huge but not nearly enough to go into something like that blind. Instead he signed on for Neill Blomkamp's new Sci-Fi epic 'Elysium', hurray!