2011: Year of the Hollywood Otaku Movie?

Yesterday I mentioned my IMDb Pro account, but today I was glancing over some things and I realized that the same release year is slapped on any number of the Hollywood anime films I have listed. Now, be wary of the dates: they could easily be pushed back, bumped forward, and some of these movies may never actually come to fruition. Not to mention, all information on IMDb should be taken with a grain of salt anyway.

Still though, look at 'em all:

AKIRA – Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Appian Way, to be distributed by Warner Bros., this is actually supposed to be the first of two films that combine to retell the story of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, though it's interesting to note that IMDb cites the movie, not the manga, as the source material. As always, though, that could be totally bogus. Akira is set to be directed by Ruairi Robinson, whose credits are minimal but respected; professional geek Gary Whitta is set to write the screenplay. Also involved is Martin Whist as prduction designer; h'es worked on such films as Cloverfield, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Event, and others.
CURRENT STATUS: Scripting

COWBOY BEBOP – Like Akira, this film is probably happening in large part due to a certain actor's involvement. In this case, though, he's set to star: Keanu Reeves will play Spike Spiegel. Peter Craig, who has more films in production at the moment than completed, will write the screenplay. No one has been set to direct, but Erwin Stoff, of I Am Legend, A Scanner Darkly, and Constantine will produce, along with Kenji Uchida and Shinichirou Watanabe, from Sunrise.
CURRENT STATUS: Scripting

DEATH NOTE – Brothers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides are set to write the screenplay; Vlas also wrote the 2000 film Everything for a Reason and the upcoming War of Gods film. Exec producers are Doug Davison and Roy Lee (The Uninvited, The Grudge, The Ring). No cast or director announcements, but you all know who I'm hoping for.
CURRENT STATUS: Scripting

DRAGONBALL 2: REBORN - I already talked about this one yesterday, but we can safely assume that all the cast from Dragonball Evolution will be back, particularly James Marsters as Piccolo. Rumor has it the film will feature the Raditz arc, in which Piccolo and Goku team up against the evil Saiyan.
CURRENT STATUS: Scripting

GHOST IN THE SHELL – A 3DCG take, also probably based more on the anime film than Shirow Masamune's manga, though we don't know for sure. It's a DreamWorks pic, produced by Ari and Avi Arad (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, etc, many other superhero flicks). Jamie Moss, writer of 2008's Street Kings, will write the script.
CURRENT STATUS: Optioned

GIGANTOR – It's hard to call this technically a “Hollywood” film, since Imagi is based on Hong Kong, but their upcoming Astro Boy is definitely making enough of a splash that I wouldn't exclude them. They've got a 2011 film based on Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Gigantor manga (also known as Tetsujin-28) in the works, to be produced by Felix Ip and Francis Kao, who obviously both worked on Astro Boy as well as the 2007 film TMNT. No scriptwriter has been announced yet.
CURRENT STATUS: Pre-production

NINJA SCROLL – Another Leonardo DiCaprio/Appian Way project, Alex Tse-- writer of the Watchmen screenplay –is going to write Ninja Scroll's as well. Interestingly, the exec-producer on the project is Jungo Maruta, who was executive producer for Paprika, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Last Order: Final Fantasy VII. Oh, and both RideBack and Kemonozume. So I guess we won't have to worry about the film not appealing to its geek history!
CURRENT STATUS: Pre-Production

So that's seven films. Even if only half of them actually happen in 2011, that's still quite a bit of Hollywood for the anime world.

Which one(s) are you excited about?