While he has a lot of writing, producing and directing credits under his belt, Seth Rogen is still chiefly known as an actor, and one of his most recent examples of on-camera work is Long Shot, where he co-starred alongside Charlize Theron. Long Shot has been out since last May, but it wasn’t until just recently that someone noticed that his character, Fred Flarsky, has a tattoo referencing one of the most famous anime movies of all time. Take a look:
Yes, if you pay attention closely enough while watching Long Shot, you’ll see that Fred Flarsky got a tattoo of the futuristic bike that lead character Shotaro Kaneda rides in Akira, as seen below.
I can understand no one noticing the Akira tattoo when Long Shot was playing in theaters, but given how one can pause a movie while watching at home to their heart’s content, I’m surprised it didn’t catch anyone’s eye until now. Or maybe someone had noticed it months earlier, but this was simply the first instance of someone bringing it up to Seth Rogen on Twitter. Plus, Fred Flarsky doesn’t mention Akira at all in Long Shot, so it’s not like we should have been on the lookout for a display of his fandom.
In any case, this just serves as a reminder about how certain things can remain undiscovered for long after a movie has been out. Even that infamous Easter egg from Guardians of the Galaxy that James Gunn has been teasing for years has only been “partially discovered.”
As far as Long Shot as a whole is concerned, the movie was a critical success, ranking at 81% among critics and scoring a 75% among audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Commercially though, it only made a little over $53 million worldwide off a reported $40 million budget. The cast of the movie originally known as Flarsky also included O’Shea Jackson Jr., June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgård, Ravi Patel and Andy Serkis.
It’s also worth mentioning that while it’s been over 30 years since Akira’s been released, nearly two decades have passed in Warner Bros’ efforts to get a live action adaptation off the ground. Filmmakers like Stephen Norrington, Ruairi Robinson and Jaume Collett-Serra were all attached at one point to direct the remake, and the current director at the helm is Jojo Rabbit’s Taika Waititi.
However, just several months after it was confirmed Taika Waititi would direct Akira, it was announced that he’d be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to helm Thor: Love and Thunder. This resulted in Akira being pulled from its 2021 release date, and while Waititi believes the new version will eventually get made, he admitted recently that he’s not sure if he’ll be the one to make it happen.
So the wait continues to adapt Akira for live action, but the original movie can still be enjoyed and be a source of references in other movies of TV shows. For example, just two years ago, that same bike was seen in Steven Spielberg’s nostalgia-packed movie Ready Player One.
As for Seth Rogen, he can be seen later this year in An American Pickle, which sees him playing an immigrant who comes to America in 1918, but accidentally falls into a vat of pickles, is brined for 100 years and wakes up in the present day not having aged. Find out what other movies are coming out later this year in our 2020 release schedule.
