The writer responsible for seven out of the eight Harry Potter films (missing only “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix“), Steve Kloves has been hired to add a little spit and polish to the script for the long awaited AKIRA live action film.

Kloves will take over work on the script written by Albert Torres (“Henry Poole is Here“) and previously, “Iron Man” scriptwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The project, currently gestating over at Warner Bros. is set to be directed by Albert and Allen Hughes whose most recent project, “The Book of Eli” was not quite the hit that everyone was expecting, leading some fans to wonder whether an Americanized adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s original, epic graphic novel is even going to work.

Of course another thing to consider is Kloves’ work on the Harry Potter series, while the films themselves are undeniably box office gold, Kloves took more than one or two liberties with the source material, cutting more sub-plots and details from each film as they went on – could we see a similarly ruthless cull of the plot-heavy Akira?

The original film, is set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019 and follows the story of Shotaro Kaneda, a biker gang member intent on stopping Tetsuo Shima from releasing Akira, a child with immense telekinetic abilities. The big screen, Americanized adaptation will move the setting from Tokyo to Neo-Manhattan.

I’m still relatively optimistic about the project at this stage for the simple fact that, despite the years of rumors, this film is very much in it’s infancy. With major casting announcements and production schedules still to be released we are a way off from seeing anything concrete. Stay tuned for more updates!