FUNimation’s Involvement on the Live Action Dragon Ball Film

This is the second edition of our classic news articles. This portion gets into how FUNimation was originally set to work with 20th Century FOX on Dragonball Evolution.

The Vice President of FUNimation has been talking about his plans for the Dragon Ball Z live-action film that is currently being developed at Fox. VP and producer Daniel Cocanougher says, “FUNimation is very excited to be working with Fox in their production of a live-action Dragon Ball Z feature film. Fox plans to place this movie on a fast-track production schedule, and may have a movie released as early as Fall 2003 or Summer 2004.”

I think it would have been great if FUNimation followed up on this. Yes they only dubbed the Dragon Ball anime, but at least they would have had input on the direction of the film itself. And it appears dragonballz.com was going to be used for the film’s official website as well. This was later changed when FUNimation acquired the domain dragonballzmovie.com.

Cocanougher also reiterates the studio’s plans to make DBZ into a solid live-action franchise. He says, “They feel that this project will not end with one movie, but will become a major, multi-picture franchise like Star Wars. Clearly, this is a remarkable upward turning point for the Dragon Ball Z property. It will also be very interesting for all Dragon Ball Z fans to try to predict the names of the stars, the director and producers, and the storyline that will be used.”

Soon after this news was when rumors of who should play which character started to rise up in the internet community.

The next article will feature the supposed first official poster for the live action DBZ movie

Yanikun

I personally loved Dragonball Evolution for what it was, but it’s funny to read this kind of articles from back then and realize that they really dumped Dragonball Evolution in theaters like they didn’t even care, gave the movie a 30 million dollar budget… If they wanted this to be a huge movie franchise then they should have thought about giving a big budget and promoting the hell out of the movie everywhere. They really messed up because DBE really is a fine movie for what it is but people expected an epic adaptation made on a big scale with a huge budget and two movies to follow it up. So of course when they get a fun and light but small production, how could they not think they would be utterly disappointed? It’s like hyping up a Superman movie and you expect to see Superman flying around, using his powers, see other planets, huge special effect-pieces, and a lot of action, and then you get a big-screen equivalent to a pilot for Smallville. To me that’s kind of what Dragonball Evolution is and I like it, but Fox shot themselves in the foot, they planned something different and made press releases about it and then significantly downgraded the size of the production. If I were just interested in seeing a Dragon Ball adaptation in the shape of a huge blockbuster, I’d be pissed too, especially since that’s what I would have been told for years it was going to be.
mamow

i remember reading this article way back then,
i dont understand how fox originally wanted this to be a huge franchise then all of the sudden make it a low budget movie?
http://www.dblegends.com avenged

By putting it off until the last minute, and….

“James Wong (director of the first and third Final Destination films, as well as The One) came aboard to direct Dragon Ball Z from his own screenplay.

Wong rewrote an earlier draft by Ben Ramsey”

They originally had director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) and screenwriter Tedi Sarafian (Terminator 3)
tbop

Funi dropped it because they thought it was a disgrace, dude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW0F99_rMwE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVbUTNcNuCw

They decided to start working on it as a cash cow to make up for the writer’s strike.

Nice one pulling Emmerich out of thin air though.
tbop

I mean, seriously, it’s documented fact that Stephen Chow was supposed to be the original director and they lost him because they DIDN’T wait until CJ-7 was finished and wrapped up. So they made him a producer instead and brought in Wong.
http://www.dblegends.com/members/admin/ avenged

Uhm pay attention to the article. It’s all older news to bring to people’s attention that did not follow it back in 2002-2003.

And according to those old articles, Stephen Chow was not even in the picture yet.

Roland Emmerich > Stephen Chow > James Wong.

http://movies.ign.com/articles/429/429907p1.html
http://movies.ign.com/articles/526/526378p1.html

And Stephen Chow had this to say about directing that movie in 2007.

” “I have been a Dragonball fan for a long time,” Stephen Chow told a reporter with the Oriental Morning Post, “the airy and unstrained story leaves much room for creation.”

Chow also explained why he would not take up the job of the movie’s director, “I only direct original movies composed by myself. This is my principle.”

Chow is recommending Zhang Yuqi, leading actress in his new sci-fi film “CJ7″, play the role of Goku’s girlfriend in the film. ”

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/stephen-chow-kinda-talks-dragon-ball-z-movie/

Either way you’re thinking of 2007 only, not anything prior to that year. Hence the point of these articles I am bringing to people’s attention.