Making a Dragon Ball Z Film Franchise Work

[i'mfuckingevil]

I am in the camp/boat that believes that this is possible, and could potentially become the greatest movie series of all time if it is done right. There are others however that believe that this is impossible and/or never should be done anyway, citing DB Evolution.

First, couple[?] a rudimentary foundation. The film studio to make it should be Columbia pictures. Warner Bros., Universal or Disney (they did a good job with Pirates of the Caribbean (potc), maybe not the actual execution, but the violence).

Now, as far as casting goes, this needs to be done the exact same way as the Philosopher's Stone. Instead of getting any known actors at all, actors who have had careers and roles that they are strongly identified with, we need fresh new faces to fit these roles and for that reason, we need casting auditions.

The actors for Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Bulma, and Chichi should all be played by Asian people. Others may disagree, and that's fine, because opinions will differ, but I strongly believe that would be a mistake and miscast.

Tien to me looks like he can be played by a white actor as well as Krillin, but they can also be Asian. Yamcha looks middle eastern to me, but he may also be Asian. In addition, the actor for Piccolo who is a main character, should be 7'5".

DIRECTORS: I say Peter Jackson, because he can make long stories look good onscreen. Now this is all a possibility due to Mos' fight scenes, particularly Faora's movements against the army, and the normal fights, but if it is more special effects than directing that gets that done, then we don't need Snyder.

So, telling the story of the manga is going to span for a few movies and some sagas need to be split up.

Dragon Ball Z: The Saiya-jinni Saga
This would be the shortest saga to tell; it would span from the arrival of Raditz to the departure of Vegeta. Things that I feel like are expendable to cut out would be most of the other world; once Goku dies they should flash forward to him at King Kai's planet.

Dragon Ball Z: The Namek Saga
This movie would span from the flight to Planet Namek to Freeza finding Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin and Dendei after Guru dies. It would be long (all of the films will be very long) and should have an intermission scene.

Dragon Ball Z: The Freeza Saga
This film would span from Vegeta's fight with Freeza all the way to Trunks' arrival and slay of Freeza and King Cold. The film should end with his warning about the oncoming androids, and him going back to the future.

Dragon Ball Z: The Android Saga
Things start to get a little tricky for me here, but I think this should start from training for the androids all the way into Cell waiting in his arena for his games to start.

Dragon Ball Z: The Cell Saga
This movie should span from training in the RoSaT to the birth of Gohan's baby brother.

Dragon Ball Z: The Majin Saga
Part 1 of the Buu Saga and probably the longest of them all, it will take a long time to tell. It should span from Goku returning for the tournament, to Buu building his own house. It should end with Mr. Satan approaching it.

Dragon Ball Z: The Buu Saga
This movie should span from basically the human extinction attack to Goku, Vegeta, Dendei, and Mr. Satan escaping to the other world.

Dragon Ball Z: The Child Buu Saga
Part 3 of the Buu Saga and the finale of the Dragon Ball Z film franchise. it should span from Goku and Vegeta luring Buu to them to Goku's next journey.

The Saiya-jinni Saga all the way up to the Android Saga should be filmed back to back, to keep up with the child Gohan's actor's age. as well, the scenes before they enter the RoSaT should be filmed before they wrap up the Android Saga.

After the Cell Saga's filming wraps up, the studio should take a few years to allow Gohan's actor to age some, in time for the Majin Saga. I'd say a 5-7 year break for the movie would be good. Of course, they can always avoid such a long break by recasting for an older, young adult actor for Gohan.

Once that comes around, the Majin Saga all the way to the final should all be filmed back to back again. This would make for a total of 8 films for probably over 10 years. It would have been cool if it fit into 7 films since there are 7 dragonballs. all of the films would be very long and they should all have intermissions.

Regardless of my imagination, I feel like if this franchise were done right (NOT DB Evolution), it has the potential of being the best, highest grossing film franchise of all time. Of ALL TAHM.

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[KentalSSJ6]

Dragonball should never, ever, become a live action franchise. Even live action anime films in Japan tend to be terrible. Dragonball is a anime, and should remain a anime.

[Nanotchi]

What about Dragon Ball? That's a pretty big part of the story too.

[crisis]

We now live in a post-Avatar/Avengers world. A live-action DBZ film that's actually DBZ and not Dragon Ball Evolution is very possible. A lot of people compare the fight scenes from Man of Steel to how a DBZ action scene(s) should look like. The special effects required are already there, so I'm not worried about that. If there was actual passion for the project, a director/studio that adheres closely to the source material (albeit changing some things here & there, as Hollywood always does even with the most faithful movie adaptation), Toriyama being deeply involved, great casting, etc. then the next epic film franchise can come to fruition.

On the other hand, despite all these things, having a multi-million dollar budget, etc. it can still turn out to be an epic disaster. Look at films like The Last Airbender and John Carter; I think Disney spent over $200 million to finance that film, and it turned out to be a giant flop at the box office. It can go either way, despite great casting or whatever. If the writing is terrible, the cinematography unappealing to the casual movie-goer, etc. then that'll be the nail in the coffin for a rebooted DBZ film franchise.

[tinlunlau]

I disagree with Peter Jackson directing. He's already done enough with the Lord of the Rings franchise.
If anything, I'd say hand it over to Stephen Chow. Comedy is his forte so you won't have to worry about the action-comedy aspect. He's even done the Journey to the West films so action stuff, I think he has the chops to handle. Maybe get Ching Siu-Tung to choreograph and you've got a solid Dragon Ball movie.

[Hellspawn28]

A DBZ movie can work if enough effort and care was put into it. Before DBE came out, I imagine a DBZ movie being Independence Day meets The Matrix 3 if they adapt the the Saiyan saga. I think DBZ movie would need at least six movies if they want to tell the full story. The Freeza saga would need at least two movies and the Cell saga should need maybe three. The Majin Buu saga would never work in live action since no one would take Buu seriously. He's a pink demon that turns people into candy and other sweats.

While Peter Jackson would be perfect for a DBZ movie, he's most likely not a fan. I don't think he would respect the source material. I do think Freeza and Cell need to be done by motion capture. Christoph Waltz as Freeza and Michael Fassbender as Cell would be my picks for casting a DBZ movie.

[Fizzer]

I don't think live-action is the way to go, unless it's seriously big budget with a fantastic director. Either cinema-quality 2D animation or realistic CGI would be much better.

The Saiyan saga is absolutely no place to start a story. There's too much baggage, too much stuff unexplained, and a lot of it requires the viewer to already be invested in the characters for full appreciation. Also, a film should have a beginning-middle-end structure and resolve something, even if it is part of a larger series.

The films should cover Dragon Ball too. In a rounded film, the adventure is slightly more important than the action, but the action should be fast-paced, intense and well-choreographed, taking things from a variety of real martial arts styles and combining them with more fantastic techniques like flight, ki blasts, energy shields, whatever. The fights should be choreographed by someone who's done martial arts films before, who can then sit and think "how would a fight between then expert fighters go, if they could also fly and do all that other stuff?".

To me, a good set of films would be:
1. Hunt for the Dragon Balls. This would combine elements of the Pilaf and RRA sagas, like Path to Power. It covers the beginning, Yamcha and Bulma getting together, etc, but also the battle with Red Ribbon Army, and Goku bringing Bora (or someone else who died along the way) back to life. Perhaps Goku could seek training from Muten Roshi during this film also, in order to beat Tao Pai Pai. As i'mfuckingevil said, these should be long films, so that would be okay.

1.5. I'm not sure if training followed by a tournament could make a good stand-alone film, so this one is just a maybe. After the events of the first film, Goku returns to Muten Roshi to train full-time, alongside Kuririn. The Tenkaichi Bodoukai combines elements of the 21st and 22nd, with the plot to kill Goku being there to make things interesting. This one would need more complexity, some extra dramatic subplots going on, because it doesn't have the adventure feel of most of the others.

2. Piccolo Daimao. This is basically based on the Piccolo Daimao arc, but could also cover Goku's training under God and the battle with Piccolo Jr. If that isn't in this one, it basically doesn't exist, because a second tournament movie would be pretty bad. These are long films so it could easily fit in there. If not, Goku can meet Chichi again another way. If the Piccolo Jr arc isn't covered, maybe both Piccolo's are the same and either Goku spares him at the end or he just survives.

3. Saiyan arc. Well, it's the Saiyan arc. It might be better if Vegeta and Nappa arrive with a small army of Saibamen, and a larger group of fighters is summoned to defend the Earth, including Muten Roshi, other fighters from the TB and that kind of thing, to make for a large battle rather than a sequence of one-on-one fights.

4. Freeza. It's the Freeza arc, but with less absurd battle-power ratings. The battles with Freeza's four forms need cutting down, so I would say give him only two forms or one. If he has two, then he remains in his first form until he decides he can't beat Piccolo that way, then transforms. If he only has one form, then Goku is healed via Senzu after his run-in with Ginyu and is held up dealing with that whole mess, while Freeza arrives earlier than before and kicks the hell out of Vegeta. During Goku's battle with Freeza, we should see his followers on other planets finding out that Freeza's highest-ranking subordinates including the Ginyu Force are all dead, and Freeza is losing a battle. A lot of those who have no real loyalty to Freeza start a sort of uprising, and in-fighting breaks out among the empire. Battles break out on many of the planets owned by Freeza, as half of the soldiers occupying them have started siding with the people and fighting against those soldiers who have stayed faithful to Freeza. Basically, the whole system is collapsing because of the battle on Namek. We end with the mysterious revelation that Goku is alive and will return one day.

5. Cell arc?

6. Buu arc?

[penguintruth]

DB doesn't lend to live-action whatsoever.

[Patrick]

Besides all the bad things about this, good luck finding a 7'5" actor to play a green alien with purple pants and a turban.

[dbboxkaifan]

If you want a somewhat real-ish DBZ then do it like DB: Path to Power in HD.

But as for the action live film with Asian people only? Saiyans aren't humans, although the earthlings could be Asians amongst others though.

Edit: You know what? Let Adam Sandler make a movie about Broli because he's such an amazing filmmaker!

[KentalSSJ6]

Besides all the bad things about this, good luck finding a 7'5" actor to play a green alien with purple pants and a turban.

Vin Diesel on stilts?

[ConfusedPhantom]

Man of Steel may have proven that they're capable of making action scenes like in DBZ...but I dunno if I want Hollywood to take on a live action Dragon Ball. I rather they just dump a bunch of money on Toei to make a bigger budget Dragon Ball movie in animated form.

[Patrick]

Besides all the bad things about this, good luck finding a 7'5" actor to play a green alien with purple pants and a turban.

Vin Diesel on stilts?

But he's shorter than I am. Hell, I'd have a better chance at being Piccolo if I had stilts.

[Super Sonic]

Would be nice if something could work and it have no complaining about changes like how Addams Family and Casper didn't have those issues. Then again, those movies came out before the internet/average folks having the net, so might not happen.

[DBZ Mick]

A motion capture animated movie like Tintin I think would work best for Dragonball.

I really don't think live-action and Dragonball mix well.

Your ideas are interesting, TC, but I really don't think they'd work well with a studio or audience...

[Logan]

Kung-Fu Hustle is the closest to a "true" Dragon Ball film we will ever likely get. I feel it captured the spirit.

Back in the day, Clancy Brown could've made an imposing Piccolo. I don't think he knows martial arts, though. Not that he couldn't have been trained.

[SaiyaJedi]

Now, as far as casting goes, this needs to be done the exact same way as the Philosopher's Stone. Instead of getting any known actors at all, actors who have had careers and roles that they are strongly identified with, we need fresh new faces to fit these roles and for that reason, we need casting auditions.

I found this part kind of hilarious, since the cast of the Harry Potter films is made up of almost nothing but stars with iconic roles to their names. The students at Hogwarts, Harry himself included, were unknowns — at first — but the stature of the franchise ensured that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were all household names by the time Philosopher's Stone came out.

[i'mfuckingevil]

I disagree with Peter Jackson directing. He's already done enough with the Lord of the Rings franchise.
If anything, I'd say hand it over to Stephen Chow. Comedy is his forte so you won't have to worry about the action-comedy aspect. He's even done the Journey to the West films so action stuff, I think he has the chops to handle. Maybe get Ching Siu-Tung to choreograph and you've got a solid Dragon Ball movie.

In all honesty, I think the comedy should be kept to a minimum and that the film series should be darker and more dramatic. A running gag could be Goku's stupidity due to lack of education and have a certain character as comic relief but that's about it.

What about Dragon Ball? That's a pretty big part of the story too.

Nope, Dragon Ball Z needs to be adapted first, being the most popular, just like LotR was. And just like the Hobbit came after LotR, so can Dragonball, if this hypothetical film series even becomes a tentpole.

Now, as far as casting goes, this needs to be done the exact same way as the Philosopher's Stone. Instead of getting any known actors at all, actors who have had careers and roles that they are strongly identified with, we need fresh new faces to fit these roles and for that reason, we need casting auditions.

I found this part kind of hilarious, since the cast of the Harry Potter films is made up of almost nothing but stars with iconic roles to their names. The students at Hogwarts, Harry himself included, were unknowns — at first — but the stature of the franchise ensured that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint were all household names by the time Philosopher's Stone came out.

The point is that at the start of the series with the first film, we would have all unknown actors taking the roles of the main characters. That's the key thing here.

[Hellspawn28]

Steven Spielberg might work for a DB movie. I think his film making could capture the feel and comedy of Dragon Ball.

[i'mfuckingevil]

Steven Spielberg might work for a DB movie. I think his film making could capture the feel and comedy of Dragon Ball.

In all honesty I don't think that a Dragon Ball Z movie should have that much comedy.