Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller has turned down helming the live-action Akira film.

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Miller told Yahoo! Movies that while he was in talks for the Warner Bros. movie, he is no longer involved with the project."There was talk of it," he said, "But I’ve got so many things on my dance card, I don’t have the time to do everything."He also debunked reports that he'd cited Akira as an influence on Fury Road."I don't know where that came from," he said. "I’m a huge fan of anime and the precision of that and to some degree Manga, even though I don’t read Japanese, but just the aesthetic of it. So Akira might have been one of the many movies but it certainly wasn’t one that directly influenced Mad Max."A live-action version of Akira has been in development for years. Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to produce, Daredevil showrunner Marco J. Ramirez is penning the script , and we recently heard rumors that Christopher Nolan may direct

Steve Watts is a freelance writer whose first anime was Akira, and he bets he wasn't alone. You can read more of his keen insights by following him on Twitter and IGN