Designer and artist Olly Moss has made an end-of-year post collecting a few of the graphic ideas he had that never went anywhere, either because the project was cancelled, it changed direction, or he had a better idea. Get ready to feel really inadequate about what constitutes a “bad idea.”

The Bottleneck Gallery in Brooklyn, NY recently held a show called “The Gang Is All Here,” which featured some great teams from pop-culture. Next up is “Alternate Ending,” where artists take some of our favorite films and either change the ending or add a scene to completely alter the ending. Over 50 artists will take part in the new show, which is co-curated with Silver Screen Society and opens this Friday at the gallery. Works that don’t sell out at the opening will go on sale December 15 at 12pm eastern. Take a look.

(images via Bottleneck Gallery, additional images via /Film)

Before you start worrying about this replica of Kaneda’s bike from Akira having anything to do with the live-action remake, rest assured: this is not that. No. It’s not. We swear. In fact, not only is the Akira remake still dead (as far as we know), but this replica, built by Shinji Tejima of Japan, was actually built for a great cause: fighting autism.

We’ve been bringing you very interesting movie news all day today, and the afternoon hours have not disappointed us. Why? Because production on the much-maligned whitewashed remake of Akira has been put on hold. While the higher-ups reconsider the budget (and try to cut $20 million out of it), production offices in Vancouver are sending their employees home and being told to “stop working.” Is it the end? Maybe not. But is the universe trying to send some sort of signal to Warner Bros.? We’d like to think so.

It’s sad to say, but movies studios that do not use the opportunities that lie before them to cast non-white actors in roles that would be great opportunities for non-white actors to play the sorts of roles that are rarely open to them do not surprise me. I’m much more likely to blink in astonishment and delight when studios hire non-white actors to play characters who, had they just hired a white actor, no one would have otherwise blinked at. See Thor and the upcoming Man of Steel. We need a word for when you are pleasantly surprised simply because your expectations were so low.

No, what really surprises me about the Akira casting is that every step the studio makes appears to be perfectly calculated to reinforce the idea that maintaining any ties to the integral cultural setting of Akira is absolutely last on the list of priorities. However, finally, the production appears to be courting it’s first non-white actor, and Ken Watanabe is not only actually Asian, but actually Japanese, a distinction of nationality that I don’t have high hopes for Hollywood ever getting through its head.

Last month, we heard that the American (read: white) remake of Akira was back on, and that Garrett Hedlund (Tron) was in the running to play either Tetsuo or Kaneda. Well, it might be getting even whiter. While it’s not official yet, producers have apparently offered Twilight actress Kristen Stewart the role of Ky Reed, the woman who is aligned with an anti-government movement. So, basically, the producers of Akira are letting us know exactly who their audience is going to be: the CW crowd. Great. So, we’ll be hearing about all those Gossip Girl kids getting offers to be part of a Japanese street gang now. This is the world we live in.

According to Variety, the long suffering and controversial-before-even-finishing-the-casting-process remake of Katsuhiro Otomo‘s animated adaptation of his epic manga Akira, is back on track at Warner Bros. On the one hand, Otomo himself is one of the movie’s executive producers. On the other, Variety says that Garrett Hedlund, of Tron and Troy fame, is a front runner for either Tetsuo or Kaneda.

Many fans were incensed last time around at Warner Bros. apparent willingness to ignore Akira‘s origin as a distinctly Japanese work of art with a distinctly Japanese setting, an excellent opportunity to bring some diversity to American cinema by casting Japanese, or at the very least Asian actors in the movie’s lead roles.

We dispute zero parts of this. (via Blastr)

Remember that time last week when we said the Akira remake wasn’t going to happen anymore because a production designer said the whole thing fell apart? Guess what? Never mind. There will be a live-action remake of Akira, because they’ve just hired a director. His name is Jaume Collet-Serra. Congratulations, Jaume Collet-Serra. You are officially helming the Carrie White of unwanted remakes.

It’s over, guys. The racebending, controversial, never-really-in-production live-action remake of the classic anime Akira appears to have totally fallen apart. After director Albert Hughes walked away from the project at the end of May and possible star Keanu Reeves passed on the project, no one else really wanted to step up. And word came from production designer Chris Weston in a recent blog post that the entire thing just “floundered.” So, that’s that. And now Keanu won’t have a potentially horrible movie making him all depressed.