Apple TV's 10-Part Cyberpunk Series Is As Close As We're Getting To Live-Action Akira

Published Sep 16, 2026, 12:31 PM EDT

Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer. 

Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.

When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.

Katsuhiro Otomo's manga and its equally influential 1988 anime adaptation, Akira, have inspired generations of creatives, yet Hollywood has repeatedly failed to bring the world of Neo-Tokyo into live action. Numerous directors and actors have been attached to the live-action project, and scripts have been rewritten only for the film to collapse before cameras could roll. At this point, the idea of a live-action Akira almost feels like one of science fiction's great lost movies.

Which is why Apple's upcoming cyberpunk series, Neuromancer, is so exciting. While it might not be Akira, it has everything needed to be a perfect substitute. Based on William Gibson's seminal 1984 novel, the series has the potential to deliver the cyberpunk world that a live-action Akira would have needed to pull off. Neuromancer​​​​​​'s road to the small screen has not been easy, as not many were willing to touch Gibson’s popular novel due to how complicated its world is.

Apple TV, thankfully, decided to take the plunge with the live-action Neuromancer series. Gibson’s novel has shaped the cyberpunk genre, and while Hollywood is still trying to figure out how to make Otomo's masterpiece without compromising its identity, Neuromancer will show audiences what that seemingly impossible movie might have looked like.

Neuromancer Will Give Us A Taste Of What Live-Action Akira Would Be

Neuromancer and Akira have several things in common. Both stories represent the darker side of science fiction and cyberpunk. While Apple TV's Neuromancer is an adaptation of William Gibson's influential novel and Akira comes from Katsuhiro Otomo's manga, they share an important visual and thematic DNA.

Neuromancer season 1 is set to premiere on Apple TV on January 22, 2027

Live-action Akira has been so difficult to produce because its world feels too enormous and challenging. Neo-Tokyo is essential to its story, and so changing it in any way would be a disservice to Otomo’s vision. Neuromancer faces a similar challenge. Its world is packed with futuristic technology and locations that need to feel lived-in. If Apple manages to make that world convincing, it could demonstrate that modern visual effects and production design are capable of recreating the kind of sprawling cyberpunk environments that a live-action Akira would require.

Why That Akira Movie STILL Hasn't Happened

Image via MovieStillsDB

Live-action remakes of popular anime are currently flooding the entertainment industry. While some of these have been hits with audiences and critics alike, others haven’t been so successful.

Despite the proof that live-action movies and TV show adaptations can work, Akira has spent more than two decades in development hell. Sony was the first studio to acquire the rights to remake the movie in the 1990s, but their plans did not materialize; hence, they abandoned the project.

Warner Bros. saw the potential in an Akira live-action film and tried to bring it to life, and that's when the problems started. Since 2002, there have been several attempts at another Akira movie, with notable names like Taika Waititi and Stephen Norrington attached to the project. The issues that had been associated with the live-action film eventually led Warner Bros. not to renew their rights, which were sold back to Kodansha in 2025.

While there is still interest in another Akira movie, there are valid reasons why it's been in development hell for so long. As mentioned, numerous directors and writers have been attached to the project, but no Akira film has made it all the way into production. That revolving door is particularly damaging for a project like Akira. Further, a movie like that would be extremely expensive to produce. There are a lot of moving parts that need to be executed perfectly in order for the story to do justice to its source material.

Then there’s an issue of whitewashing. Some Hollywood versions attempted to relocate the story to an American setting, which immediately created concerns about whether the adaptation would still retain the source material's identity. It is disheartening that one of the best anime ever created has yet to see the light of day, but the fact that Neuromancer, which was considered unadaptable, has managed to do so signals that it is not too late for a live-action Akira film.

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Upcoming Apple TV+ sci-fi series adapting the novel Neuromancer by William Gibson, the first in his Sprawl trilogy and a foundational cyberpunk text. In it, a crew of mercenaries and a master hacker target a massive corporation with a high-stakes heist.