Filmonic » Dragonball Evolution

Marsters and Chatwin talk Dragonball sequels

Liam — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:03:25 +0000

The early reviews for Dragonball Evolution haven’t been that great, however if it makes a gazillion dollars at the box office 20th Century Fox will most likely move forward with a sequel, whether we want it or not. James Marsters and Justin Chatwin spoke to IGN about more Dragonball movies, and they seem pretty excited about a second movie, which already has a script.

Firstly Marsters told us why he hopes the film is successful enough to get a sequel and how many DB movies he’d like to see: “I hope [the movie does well] because my character only really gets interesting in the second film, I mean he’s interesting now! But his journey is really developed in the script for the second movie.”
He went on: “All I know is I’ve been signed to three movies, but I would like to make five – seven of them. You could just pretty much paint by numbers using the wealth of source material to easily get the seven films. There’s that much there.”
Meanwhile Chatwin is also obviously thinking about Dragonball as a series of movies, with the actor seeing Evolution as an introduction piece to the wider universe.
He said: “There’s a whole generation of kids waiting to be introduced to Dragonball, so this first movie is really important for that. I mean the main plot is the battle between Piccolo and Goku, but this first film still serves to introduce the characters and where they’re from and what they’re deals are and so to cover that ground really takes up most of the first movie.”
He goes on: “I know what they have in store for the second one and it’s really cool! It’s more in the vein of the Dragonball saga… it goes into other places, there’s other characters, other fighters and there’s a lot of action that is just really awesome.
“It actually goes more into Dragon Ball Z land and it’s just really exciting. It goes into the whole legend of Dragonball. I cant really say more than that but it made me think this is a cool franchise to be a part off, because there’s so much we haven’t shown yet.”

I currently have no plans to see Dragonball Evolution when it is released in just over a weeks time, so this sequel talk doesn’t really interest me much. Dragonball fans, would you be interested in a sequel?

Dragonball Evolution reviews

Liam — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:31:52 +0000

Dragonball Evolution has already been released in some parts of the world such as China and Japan. As a result reviews have been pouring online…and it doesn’t look good (although that was expected).

Anime News Network gave it an F:

In the end, it all boils down to one thing: this movie appeals to nobody. It was made for no one. People who aren’t familiar with the Dragon Ball story at all will be so flabbergasted by what’s happening that they will likely tell everyone they know that it’s one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. Fans who do know what the general story is will be furious at just how unbelievably badly they screwed this entire thing up. Kids are used to better writing than this in their weekday afternoon cartoons (although you may run into a kid who has never actually seen a movie before, and they might dig it until you show them another movie). It’s a clunky, tiresome, badly executed, horribly written pile of shame that deserves no quarter.

Nuke the Fridge

This film was easy to sit through, but not worth the price of admission. The plot is almost nonexistent and pasted together with visual effects when they needed to fill in gaps where there was nothing to say. The scope of his film is too small and almost feels like it was more for a direct to DVD release. “Dragonball” deserves better and so do you, my advice is to go read the manga.

AICN

Dragon Ball: Evolution is a terrible film for both DB fans and as a standalone film. It’s not unwatchable, but it’s definitely in the same league as Street Fighter circa JCVD which means you’ll want to gather your friends and have a great laugh together.

A Nutshell

This is basically a movie that only children below the age of 5 will enjoy tremendously, despite having to see 6 half-balls, contributed courtesy of the 3 lead female characters, being continuously flashed on screen, thanks to some neck plunging wardrobe (where’s that malfunction when you need one?) Totally bland and really uninteresting, I would suggest sticking to the manga instead.

These are all negative and so far I haven’t been able to find a positive one to counter all of the bad buzz.

Thanks to movieboy1 for the links.

Can You Kamehameha?

Liam — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:34:41 +0000

Movieboy1 directed me to a Youtube video that looks like some viral marketing for Dragonball Evolution.

This must be the worst viral marketing ever.
The YouTube channel CanYouKameHameHa asks you to record your best Kamehameha and upload it to their Youtube group.

I don’t know who this woman is but i’ve spent the past 10 minutes laughing at her, while feeling embarrassed for her at the same time.

New Dragonball trailer shows us the effects are almost finished

Liam — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:19:28 +0000

We have a new trailer for Dragonball Evolution, and you can tell the April release date is getting closer as the trailer features lots of scenes with special effects and high action. We even get a dragon!

Watch it below:

I want this too be good but I still can’t decide whether it will be or not. What do you think? Does it look good or will it be another flop for Fox?

Dragonball Evolution Trailer

Liam — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:33:59 +0000

Dragonball Evolution is officially the new title for 20th Century Fox’s upcoming Dragonball movie. We know this because it says so at the end of a new trailer that has Youtubed it’s way online. It would be easy to just keep hating on this movie, however the new trailer improved my interest slightly. Yes, it looks slightly cheesy and hardcore Dragonball fans will probably hate it’s guts, however now the effects are being finished up and the moneyshots are appearing, it actually looks quite cool (if you like cheesy special effects bonanzas).

Watch it below:

Dragonball Evolution?

Liam — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:31:45 +0000

Apparently that is the new title for 20th Century Fox’s Dragonball movie. ComingSoon.net say it isn’t officially confirmed, although if it is true then we should hear from Fox soon.

Directed by James Wong, the big screen version stars Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Emmy Rossum, Eriko Tamura, Joon Park, Chow Yun-Fat, Texas Battle, Randall Duk Kim and Ernie Hudson.

Dragonball Teaser Trailer!

Liam — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:26:40 +0000

Yesterday we got the bootleg version and today we have the full version (with sound!). People have been waiting to get a glimpse of James Wong’s Dragonball for a while now. The film stars Justin Chatwin as Goku, Emmy Rossum as Bulma, James Marsters as Lord Piccolo, and you can watch the teaser below!

The story begins with a young humanoid boy named Goku, who discovers that he was sent to Earth to blend in and destroy our population but instead elects to protect it from an oncoming alien onslaught bent on dominating the universe and controlling the mystical objects. He seeks out upon his adoptive grandfather Grandpa Gohan’s dying request to find the great Master Roshi and gather all seven Dragon Balls. Of which he has one, in order to prevent the evil Lord Piccolo from succeeding in his desire to use the Dragon Balls to take over the world. And Goku’s quest is to obtain the mystical Dragonballs before Piccolo does.

Dragonball Bootleg Teaser Trailer

Liam — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:05:26 +0000

Below we have our first look at moving footage from James Wong’s upcoming Dragonball movie. There are a few problems however. There is no sound and the quality is not the best. You can still see whats going on though.

The footage was filmed at the Brand Licensing Europe 2008 convention.

Emmy Rossum Talks Dragonball

Liam — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:11:23 +0000

Emmy Rossum spoke to MTV about her role as Bulma in the upcoming Dragonball movie. According to Rossum, fans should be pleasantly surprised with the way the property has been translated by James Wong into a live-action project.

“When I signed on to the project, I was a big fan of the anime and knew [Bulma] as the iconic blue, bobbed character and wanted to stay true to that — but we also wanted to make it realistic,” explained Rossum. “So in keeping with the director and what the studio really wanted, we adapted her look to be a little more realistic and human, and little bit more believable for contemporary day. She’s pretty bad-ass, but still quirky and fun, and kind of ridiculous in the way she is in the anime.”
That doesn’t mean the legions of “Dragonball” faithful aren’t far from her mind, though. Rossum said her first encounter with “Dragonball” was the Saturday morning cartoon, only to realize that “it’s really so much more than that — from the comic to [the cartoon] to the whole franchise and brand, so many people feel such a closeness to these characters.”
“So, it’s a little bit stressful to play a character that so many people hold close to their hearts,” she admitted, “but you just hope you do it justice and they like it.”

I’m still waiting on the first trailer to be released, which will be soon apparently. Then Dragonball fans can judge for themselves whether they expect to be pleasantly surprised.

Dragonball Trailer Screenshots

Liam — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:12:44 +0000

NerdOrama.cl have posted what look like (bad) screenshots from the upcoming teaser trailer for Dragonball, as well as this poster featuring Emmy Rossum as Bulma. We also get our first look at Lord Piccolo, played by James Marsters. Click the poster below to see the soon to be removed screenshots!

Poster removed to due request

Written and directed by James Wong, the adaptation stars Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Rossum, Eriko Tamura, Joon Park, Chow Yun-Fat, Texas Battle, Randall Duk Kim and Ernie Hudson. 20th Century Fox will release the movie on April 10.