Warner Bros. has hired HARRY POTTER scribe Steve Kloves to rewrite its live-action adaptation of AKIRA, reports Variety. Based on Katsuhiro Otomo's manga, the story takes place in post-apocalyptic Japan where the government experiments on children in order to unlock their psychic abilities.

Albert Hughes is helming and will produce with his brother Allen. Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar and Appian Way's Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran are also producing. Otomo, who also directed the 1988 anime version, will exec produce.

Kloves will be working from a script that has been worked on by Albert Torres, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby and Gary Whitta.