After some considerable time spent in development, it now appears that the long-awaited live-action Akira movie will start filming in late February/early March next year, according to a report at Variety.

The paper says that Warner Bros. has given Unknown‘s Jaume Collett-Serra a $90m budget for the shoot, with Tron: Legacy‘s Garrett Hedlund under serious consideration for one of the lead roles.

Harry Potter adapter Steve Kloves has penned the script, which has transplanted the action from New Tokyo to New Manhattan. “The cyberpunk sci-fi epic follows the leader of a biker gang who must save his friend, discovered with potentially destructive psychokinetic abilities, from government medical experiments,” Variety explains.