A big screen live-action adaptation of Akira has been languishing at Warner Bros. for years now. We haven't heard about the project since August 2013, when Jaume Collet-Serra was in talks to direct. Now, buried in a Deadline article that reveals Dante Harper is set to write The Secret of the Temple for Fox 2000, is also the news that he is penning the latest draft of the iconic Akira anime.

The film will be based on Katsuhiro Ôtomo's 1988 manga of the same name. Warner Bros. had shut down production on the adaptation back in January 2012, due to its ballooning budget. The film had already lined up a cast that included Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart and Ken Watanabe. The fact that its leading man wasn't Japanese didn't help matters either, as fans rallied against the casting.

Its not clear how soon Akira will go back into production. Dante Harper wrote the original screenplay for Edge of Tomorrow, back when it was called All You Need is Kill. His screenplay was changed numerous times before it arrived on the big screen, which resulted in the writer not being credited for his work by the Writers Guild.

Will Akira move into production sooner than later? That's anybody's guess at this point. It's also unclear if any of the selected cast is still attached to the project. Or if Jaume Collet-Serra will direct.