New Evangelion Movie (seriously)

Apocalypse · May 23, 2003, 01:57

I'm surprised this hasn't been talked about yet. I assume Kassi is going to either cream his pants or get incredibly pissed. Anyway...

Quote:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ADV FILMS ANNOUNCES LIVE-ACTION THEATRICAL VERSION OF JAPANESE ANIMATED TITLE “NEON GENESIS EVANGELION;” VISUAL EFFECTS BY “LORD OF THE RINGS” STUDIO WETA WORKSHOP LTD.
THE MOST INFLUENTIAL JAPANESE ANIMATED SERIES IN MODERN TIMES TO COME TO LIFE AS A FEATURE FILM
CANNES, FRANCE, 19 May 2003—In an announcement sure to make waves in the entertainment industry, ADV Films President and CEO John Ledford today publicly confirmed industry rumors that the firm has acquired the rights to produce, and has already begun development of, a live-action feature-film based on the Japanese animated television series “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” a multi-million dollar worldwide franchise and perhaps the most influential anime title in the history of the art form. The project is a collaboration between ADV Films, Gainax and Weta Workshop, Ltd.
The Participants
ADV Films is the leading producer-distributor of Japanese animation in North America. The Japanese anime and game studio Gainax Network Systems was one of the original production studios responsible for “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” and Weta Workshop, Ltd. is the New Zealand-based special effects studio that created the effects for Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
“The three main players here represent something of a ‘dream-team’ for a project like this one,” said Ledford. “Between the quality and significance of the Gainax title, Weta’s industry-leading skill in the creation of special visual effects, and our expertise in the marketing and promotion of anime and anime-related content, this project is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The Story
“Neon Genesis Evangelion” is the story of a reluctant young hero, called upon to pilot an immense robotic weapon in battle against alien invaders. Including both a 26-episode television series and at least two animated motion pictures, “Neon Genesis Evangelion” has long been both a fan favorite and an extraordinary critical and commercial success, with the worldwide franchise producing many millions of dollars in revenue.
Timetable
The “Neon Genesis Evangelion” live-action motion picture is in the earliest stages of development. Ledford confirmed, however, that the timetable is an aggressive one, and that more information on the project is forthcoming.
About Weta Workshop, Ltd
Founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor, Tania Rodger, Peter Jackson and Jamie Selkirk, Weta is a physical and digital effects company providing creatures, special make-up effects, prosthetics, miniatures, armor, weaponry and digital effects for the film and television industry. Over the past sixteen years the company has provided effects for Jackson’s “Meet the Feebles”, “Braindead” (aka “Dead Alive”), “Heavenly Creatures,” “The Frighteners,” and “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy, as well as for advertisements and television shows including the popular “Hercules” and “Xena” series. At the height of production on “The Lord of the Rings,” Weta Workshop employed 150 physical effects technicians and 350 digital effects technicians at Weta Digital. Weta’s work on “The Lord of the Rings” has garnered worldwide praise including two Academy Awards in 2002 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup), and one in 2003 (for Best Visual Effects). The British Academy has also honored Weta’s work by awarding two BAFTAs in 2002 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup) and two more in 2003 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Costume).
About Gainax
Gainax was founded in 1984. It began as a corps of amateur filmmakers, centered around current company president Hiroyuki Yamaga and anime director Hideaki Anno. Their first work, “Wings of Honneamise,” continues to garner praise worldwide. Gainax’s highly original style of filmmaking spans the generations, appealing to fans both young and old. 1995’s “Neon Genesis Evangelion” whipped up an anime fever of extraordinary proportions, receiving attention not only from anime fans, but also from many other corners of society. Hideaki Anno, who directed “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” commands respect from even the likes of “Spirited Away” director Hayao Miyazaki.
About ADV Films:
In 1992, ADV Films began to forge the international market for Japanese animation (“anime”) by combining unique titles, outstanding production values and efficient large-scale distribution. Today, ADV Films is the #1 producer-distributor of Japanese animation to the North American market, with the firm’s holdings including such premier titles as “NOIR,” “Sailor Moon,” “Samurai X,” “Hello Kitty’s Paradise,” “RahXephon,” “Spriggan,” “Robotech,” “Full Metal Panic” and “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” In addition, ADV Films’ product line has expanded to include other forms of genre programming, including live-action science fiction programs “Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda,” “Mutant X” and The Jim Henson Company’s “Farscape,” and classic science fiction such as the updated “Gamera” trilogy. ADV Films’ parent company, A.D. Vision, Inc., also publishes Newtype USA, the premier anime and manga monthly in the English-speaking world, and operates The Anime Network™, broadcasting anime and anime-related programming via digital cable, 24 hours a day. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, USA, with additional offices in the EU and Japan, and distribution on four continents, ADV is fast becoming an international entertainment powerhouse.

http://www.advfilms.com/news/index.asp?c=&i=921

Paul Hanson · May 23, 2003, 04:07

Sounds pretty interesting. Let's hope they can pull it off.

Wraith · May 23, 2003, 07:39

Yeah, I was going to post that this weekend (I'll be doing a new Anime Apolyton).

Scary thought, isn't it? Niether ADV nor Gainaix have the money to pull off a big-budget movie, so it's going to be a small-budget movie. Even with Weta involved I'm worried it's going to turn out too much like the first Power Rangers movie...

In any case, I'm not sure why they think this would work. Anime to live-action transitions don't very often. Evangelion has high enough special effects requirements to make this a big task, and that's leaving aside the issue of trying to get the movie past the censors (nudity with actors that look fourteen? Yeah, that's gonna fly).

Not to mention casting problems. With Gaianax involved, at least the cast should turn out Japanese (it is set in Japan after all), but still.

Not sure what story they can tell, either. The series and movie pretty much wrap things up, so they'll have to do an earlier side-story. Which means no Angels. Hmm... maybe they'll do an Evangelion movie without showing the Evas. That would cut back on the f/x budget...

Wraith
"Anta baka?"
-- Asuka ("Evangelion")

VJ · May 23, 2003, 07:41

The Disease continues to spread in our societies...

Q Classic · May 23, 2003, 11:13

it's crazy. i'm sure it could be something like a wierd de/reconstruction of the series, much like what death and rebirth was.

DanS · May 23, 2003, 11:32

Haven't they already beat this dead horse one too many times?

monolith94 · May 23, 2003, 18:15

Actually, my sister's fourteen and an actor... She'd make a really good Asuka.

JCG · May 23, 2003, 18:52

Whatever they end up doing, thankfully it shouldn't be as hard to digest as EoE was....

monolith94 · May 23, 2003, 18:53

End of Evangelion was great!

ColdWizard · May 23, 2003, 18:54

Live action?

ixnay · May 23, 2003, 19:01

Oh my.

Nubclear · May 23, 2003, 21:47

I hate movies. I hate cartoons.

I REALLY hate this. But most of all: I HATE FINLAND.

monolith94 · May 23, 2003, 22:29

They hate you, as well. If I had a choice of Tassadar hating me, or 10,000 Finns hating me, the choice is clear. The little communist from Utah can hate me all he likes!

Spiffor · May 23, 2003, 23:28

Is Anno involved at all ?

Otherwise, I fear this movie will be even crappier than it sounds. A poor attempt to milk some more money from the franchise without deepening the storyline...

(well, I was critical towards the end of Eva as welll - had the original ending have more budget, it would have been aboslutely great, and strictly what we needed)

JCG · May 23, 2003, 23:34

A great mess, I'd say....

The average live actor would look ridiculous trying to pull off about half of what was in EoE....and thus I'm glad that there's little to no chance such stuff will make it into THIS movie.

Nubclear · May 24, 2003, 00:48

Quote:

Originally posted by monolith94
They hate you, as well.

Under Putin, all the peoples love each other

Wraith · May 24, 2003, 08:56

--"Haven't they already beat this dead horse one too many times?"

Actually, not really. Evangelion just got one TV series (one season), two movies, and the manga. Most of the merchandising hasn't even hit the US and probably never will.

In Japan, usually the shows with high ratings get more episodes. As long as the ratings are high, they'll get another season. Some of them have been running literaly for decades.

If you want a franchise that's been beaten into the ground, check out the latest versions of Dragonball or Gundam.

--"Is Anno involved at all ?"

No one's said either way yet, but I'd suspect not. Yes, that's part of the reason I'm worried. I just don't think Anno has any interest in returning to Evangelion.

Still, with Gainax involved it can't get too far from the original series. They're very notorious for the tight control (usually excessively so) they keep on all their properties.

--"The average live actor would look ridiculous trying to pull off about half of what was in EoE."

There's three basic ways they can go with this.

1) Remake End of Evangelion in live action.
This would be stupid. ADV and Gainax combined don't have the kind of budget it would take to do a good job on the combat sequences, much less the rest of the effects the movie would require. The violence itself wouldn't be a problem in the US, but there plenty of other things that wouldn't get past the censors, so they'd have to cut a few parts.

2) Retell the TV series.
This would be an attempt to do something like what the Escaflowne movie did for the TV series. I think this would also be a bad idea, since it would likely end up just a plain old mecha fighting movie, which kind of misses the point of Evangelion all together. There's just not time for this in a standard motion picture.

3) Do a side story.
This is possible. There are some loose threads from the series they can pick up on and run with. What happened leading up to the S2 experiments, for instance.
This could be good or bad, depending on the director and the writer.

Wraith
"I'm not used to being liked. Being hated, on the other hand, is quite familiar."
-- Gendo Ikari ("Evangelion")

Spiffor · May 24, 2003, 09:43

Except if they do an outstanding performance, I don't think I'll like the movie at all.

The problem with all translation from anime / comics to live action movies is that the human characters cannot look like the drawn characters, and it directly goes against the way you picture the characters.

I mean, to me all Evangelion characters have big round eyes. I will simply not recognize them with beaded eyes, or even western ones if American actors are used. Besides, the simple looks of an anime character cannot been imitated in a live action movie, except if there is massive Computer rendering to remove all the little things that make a face complex. Since there will be a low budget, I don't believe they'll do that.

Lastly, except if they ask the voice actors to dub the live actors, the voices will also be different

The only way for the movie not to be too disappointing would be for it to take place in a whole different location with whole different characters, but within the Evangelion universe (like the American base that disappears, or the German research center)

Kassiopeia · May 24, 2003, 11:00

If I hadn't been taking a little break from Apolyton for the past week, I would have posted a thread about this on Wednesday already.

Quote:

Originally posted by Apocalypse
I assume Kassi is going to either cream his pants or get incredibly pissed.

The latter, I'm afraid. I've been ranting about this on other forums and my school for the past two days, so may as well rant about it here too.

I wholeheartedly agree with what Wraith has said.

The thought of Anno being involved (he did move onto live action projects after Evangelion) crossed my mind, but Anno, as Wraith pointed out, is done with Evangelion. I personally agree with that notion - Evangelion is currently complete, and doesn't need this. My suspicion is that Gainax, being not too ethical when it comes to money, is more than pleased after getting a huge load of dosh from ADV to allow them to do this.

ADV however is not that big. It can't garner up hundreds of millions of dollars to make a blockbuster Hollywood film. That doesn't mean the Eva film wouldn't follow the usual pattern of conforming to the lowest common denominator. That is, they'll aim this at the big heaps of people who don't know what Evangelion is. If they aimed at the Evangelion fans, the market would be too small, if they tried to please both, neither would be satisfied.

Quote:

Anime to live-action transitions don't very often.

Fist of the North Star serves as an example. Of course, the original was nothing special either.

Interesting plot options would be, like Spiffor suggested, the other non-Japanese branches. Or maybe something from the days of the Artificial Evolution Project and Gehirn, like an elaboration of episode 21. They'd have to come up with a consistent plot that doesn't require knowledge of the anime Evangelion, however.

I just hope that they won't do the unthinkable and cram eleven hours of story into a two hour film. They'd probably have to start cutting characters to pull that off. Like Kaji. Or, pray tell, Rei. I'd much rather see Shinji sit in Eva 01 and bash Angels for the rest of the film with the worst sfx in existence.

Quote:

Still, with Gainax involved it can't get too far from the original series. They're very notorious for the tight control (usually excessively so) they keep on all their properties.

They are? Well, at least there's a glimpse of hope left here somewhere.

I'm just going to hope that this film will be the perfect example of a bad idea never processed into execution.

Here's something to enlighten the mood...

Quote:

Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, Catch Me If You Can) is set to head off the all star cast playing maniacal superscientist Graham Ikari, intent on achieving instrumentality, whatever the personal cost. The team at NERV, the Angel-Busting Institute, are also rumoured to be well represented with Gwenyth Paltrow (7even, Shakespeare in Love) playing Rachelle Akagi and Jennifer Lopez (The Cell, American Maid) excelling herself in the role of Mariah Kusianos, the gutsy latina seargant with a dark family history.

The children that bought the series such fame in the States will be portrayed by a bevy of upcoming talent from Hollywood. Haley Joel Osmont (The Sixth Sense) will play the now famous Shinji Ikari, the plucky young boy fighting for the fate of the world. Rumours abound on the actor playing his love interest Alicia Langley Souryu, but so far, most sources point to none other than pint-size supergirl Nikki Webster! In a surprise move, the trio have announced that mysterious and coy Raylene Ayanami will be completely CG rendered, joining the hallowed ranks of blockbuster greats such as Jar Jar Binks.

Will the gambit pay off? Fox News says... Yes. It will.

(Picked up from a random forum)

Love the parallels they draw between Phantom Menace and Live Action Eva.

Kassiopeia · June 16, 2003, 19:36

What really made me drop my eyeballs today was this IMDb entry. After prodding around the topics of the message boards, though, I came to the conclusion that this probably doesn't have anything to do with the anime Evangelion.

Then there's this article.

I am definitely NOT lending any of my trust to that article, since Evangelion is referred to as "the space epic". And Aintitcool hasn't really earned any trust from me before. However, authentic or not, some of the pictures made me feel almost optimistic:

(I want to see that...)

Done properly, the Evangelion film might look very, very cool. The plot nonwithstanding, the visuals could be excellent, with the proper dark tone and all. Too bad eye-candy isn't exactly the point in Eva...

What concerned me a little bit was this image. Those buildings look somehow... American...

This is of course just some concept art, which doesn't necessarily have any bearings with the end result. But, interesting.

monolith94 · June 16, 2003, 19:42

You know, they could also attempt to retell the story using SEVERAL movies... say two episodes a movie - that could work!

Wraith · June 16, 2003, 19:56

--" I came to the conclusion that this probably doesn't have anything to do with the anime Evangelion."

Luckily, it doesn't.

--"However, authentic or not, some of the pictures made me feel almost optimistic:"

They are authentic, but they've been taken from the Japanese magazine Newtype. Posted this link in my anime thread a while back:
http://www.ag.wakwak.com/~lay/img-bo...0608102137.jpg

--"You know, they could also attempt to retell the story using SEVERAL movies..."

If only they had the budget for it...

Now... let's see if these images will post, or if I need to shrink them first...

Wraith
I prefer to remain anomalous

Wraith · June 16, 2003, 19:56

That seemed to work... part 2...

Wraith · June 16, 2003, 19:57

And part 3....

Kassiopeia · June 16, 2003, 20:35

Quote:

They are authentic, but they've been taken from the Japanese magazine Newtype. Posted this link in my anime thread a while back:
http://www.ag.wakwak.com/~lay/img-b...30608102137.jpg

Ah, good thing I'm getting my eyesight checked in August (read: How did I manage to miss that?!).

ColdWizard · June 16, 2003, 23:05

ah, those pictures created a new experience for me, never previously felt feeling best described as funny horror... sort of

:disgust:

Wraith · June 17, 2003, 08:07

--"ah, those pictures created a new experience for me,"

They're from a site called the Food Court, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to be around any more. They had some other good stuff that I don't have copies of (like Mickey Mouse in Terminal Dogma in place of what's supposed to be there).
Not just Evangelion stuff, either. I remember one good Escaflowne one that was a parody of an AT&T pager ad...

I need to look for those...

Wraith
Warning: Whimsical when bored