It’s been a year since I spoke to director Jaume Collet-Serra about Non-Stop and, at the time, he was actively working on the live-action adaptation of Akira. The project has been in the works for years, but ran into some trouble when Warner Bros. didn’t approve of Albert Hughes’ $180 million version of the film. That’s when Collet-Serra stepped in. He did manage to bring the budget down to $90 million, but the studio wanted the price tag even lower, specifically between $60 and $70 million.

Clearly Akira still needed work, but based on what Collet-Serra said last year, it did seem like he was closer to making it happen than ever. He noted, “I’m focusing on Akira,” and also added, “Hopefully that’s the next one.” However, I got the chance to reconnect with Collet-Serra today for his latest film, Run All Night, and now that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Here’s what he said when asked if he’s made any progress on Akira:

“No, no. There’s nothing.”

He explained that he just shot two movies back-to-back, Non-Stop and Run All Night, so that’s really all he’s been working on since we last spoke. When I asked what could come next, here’s what he told me:

“A vacation! I truly will not make a decision on a movie for a few months because I’ve done these two movies in three years without any time off so I cannot wait for this movie to come out and just fade away. So my next movie’s not gonna be for a while, let’s put it this way.



Making one movie after the next is quite the commitment so Collet-Serra certainly deserves that vacation, but does that mean there’s no hope for Akira? He said:

“It’s a Warner Bros. question.”

Collet-Serra certainly never dubbed the project dead, but he also definitely wasn’t talking about it as enthusiastically as he was last year so it seems as though the Akira movie may have hit yet another snag.