Can Dragon Ball Work In Live-Action?

[Mr. Slump]

After the failure of Evolution, I was wondering whether you think Dragon Ball can work in the medium of live-action or do you think it’s practically impossible because Dragon Ball is simply too fantastical, or out-there to ever work in that format?

[WittyUsername]

It seems like this question has been asked a lot in the past few years, but to answer you, I don’t think there’s anything that’s too fantastical to be put in live action at this point. CGI has advanced to the point where there’s virtually nothing you can’t theoretically put on the screen.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Of course. There was a time when people would have thought comic book movies in general would look too silly in live action, but the MCU proved otherwise. Likewise, Dragon Ball can work with the right direction and people who understand the source material.

How long it will be until someone new takes that chance is anyone's guess. Maybe if Shang-Chi is a huge hit that combined with the success of Captain Marvel (where we saw transformations) will be enough of an incentive for a good director to give it a shot. Worth noting Guardians of the Galaxy also gave us some anthrophomoric creatures, so slowly we've been seeing all the elements that make Dragon Ball what it is in other movies, it's just a matter of putting them all together and being true to Toriyama's characters. I'd be down for it if some real effort was put in to make a good movie.

[MasenkoHA]

Yes. Not only is Dragon Ball mostly inspired by Jackie Chan films from the 70s but clearly we have seen plenty of live action movies with fantastical elements.


What exactly does Dragon Ball have that can’t be done in live action? Especially now?

[Yuji]

What exactly does Dragon Ball have that can’t be done in live action? Especially now?

Goku's hair.

[MasenkoHA]

What exactly does Dragon Ball have that can’t be done in live action? Especially now?

Goku's hair.

You win this round

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

Goku's hair.

Maybe if you want to go with a 1:1 recreation but just making a spiky hair aproximation would work well enough.

[jjgp1112]

Dragon ball Evolution's awfulness had absolutely nothing to do with whether Dragon Ball is adaptable. Fox didn't even do the bare minimum to present Dragon Ball with any sort of faithfulness. They just cobbled together some mid-00s coming of age action nonsense and slapped the Dragon Ball names onto it.

[MyVisionity]

Evolution's failure wasn't about any lack of faithfulness to the source material. It was just poorly written and directed. If they had invested more time and effort into the film, it could have been a hit, despite its changes from the source.

[Shaddy]

I'd say the majority of Dragon Ball's appeal is in it's visuals, so probably not.

[Hellspawn28]

You have plenty of wuxia films that are similar to Dragon Ball, and they work fine. You also don't need a 200 million budget because the third Matrix movie had a DBZ style fights with a budget under 200 million.

[The Accountant]

Maybe to an extent, like the majority of live-action anime and video game adaptations. A lot of Dragon Ball's charm comes from its art style, being a manga/ anime. That visual aesthetic won't translate perfectly to live-action.

[kemuri07]

I'd argue that the original DB is the only one that comes close to being able to be recreated in live-action. If only because it's clearly reverent of old school chinese martial arts film. A movie that veers to the wuxia stuff would work. But then again, there are plenty of Journey to the west adaptation that would make that redundant.


Anyone who wants a DBZ live action film doesn't really know what they want.

[jjgp1112]

I'd argue that the original DB is the only one that comes close to being able to be recreated in live-action. If only because it's clearly reverent of old school chinese martial arts film. A movie that veers to the wuxia stuff would work. But then again, there are plenty of Journey to the west adaptation that would make that redundant.


Anyone who wants a DBZ live action film doesn't really know what they want.

What exactly does the Z portion have that live action movies haven't been able to pull off since 1993?

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

I'd argue that the original DB is the only one that comes close to being able to be recreated in live-action. If only because it's clearly reverent of old school chinese martial arts film. A movie that veers to the wuxia stuff would work. But then again, there are plenty of Journey to the west adaptation that would make that redundant.


Anyone who wants a DBZ live action film doesn't really know what they want.

I think this is where I'm at. There's a bunch of live-action Journey to the West movies out there and they run the full spectrum of movies. Which means there's probably not a whole lot of room for a live-action Dragon Ball to establish its own identity. It'd have the iconography of Dragon Ball so if the execution is ok it'd probably be well received by fans. But a general audience probably wouldn't get the big deal.

Ironically that's probably why it would need to be a Z-era story. That's the part of the story closest to being its own thing. Unfortunately with the popularity of super hero movies there's a good chance that either in the editing room or production meetings that a Z-era movie might get pulled in an Endgame/Age of Ultron direction. But that's probably better than an action movie retread.

[NitroEX]

It can be done, but realistically I don't think western Hollywood is going to be a natural fit for it. The budget and long term commitment required to "do it right" would be pretty huge and I think at this point, only the Asian film industry will treat the brand with the kind of respect it needs. From there it would just be dubbed into English and be consumed as a niche offshoot in the west, nothing with any sort of major marketing push behind it, just a modest release on the level of Shin Godzilla.

A western attempt at this point would come with far too much baggage in my opinion, not only from the abysmal failure of Evolution (which will no doubt negatively affect the film's chances of attracting any decent stars or funding), but there'd be a high risk of no sequels which makes the whole endeavour pointless to begin with. Even Alita Battle Angel, being as well directed as it is and despite it being the highest-grossing anime/manga film adaptation, is still struggling to get a sequel. Can Dragon Ball live-action do better? Maybe, but you'd have a hard time convincing the boomer execs of that based on Evolution's numbers.

Then there's also the issue of mass appeal and the infusing of modern politics that would reshape a western project into something very different from the ideal Dragon Ball film that the average fan imagines. For better or worse, you're not going to get guys fighting for an hour with ki blasts and kooky humour, you're instead going to be given a heavily condensed story with more relatable elements intended for casuals who aren't DB nerds. And that doesn't even factor in any surprises mandated from the suits funding the operation. Female empowerment and an emphasis on diversity seems to be the name of the game for film studios these days and DB doesn't have much of the former once the fighting happens, so in other words, be prepared for fuckery with the casting (gender-swapped characters perhaps?) along with whatever major story changes are made.

As they say, be careful what you wish for.

[WittyUsername]

I will say this; while adapting Dragon Ball into live action shouldn’t be difficult from a technical standpoint, creatively speaking, faithfully adapting the manga into live action would be more difficult than adapting an American comic book superhero. At the very least, a TV show would likely be more feasible than a movie series, but even then, that might run the risk of being a generic fantasy action show.

[Goku da Silva]

Forget about it guys, the magic of Dragon Ball lies in it's unique look, pace and themes, cinema would destroy it. I'm 30 years old and two of my passions in life are films and Dragon Ball, in the specific case of DB mixing then would be a dissaster. Certain masterpieces are untochable.

[Brogeta]

Not without taking liberties it can't and tbh fans will nitpick the heck out of it for not being 100% like the manga it's based on. The thing about comics and animation is that it doesn't always translate 100% into live action. When adapting a 2d comic book, you will have to take some liberties for it to translate well into live action.

I mean no offense here but a lot of things that work in the anime would not work in live action. Goku being one of them.

It's pointless in even trying because you will have people whining why it's not exactly like the anime or the manga.

EDIT: Though I would like to add that not everything needs to be live action. Some things exists in the right medium and doesn't need always have a live movie made out of it.

[UpFromTheSkies]

After the failure of Evolution, I was wondering whether you think Dragon Ball can work in the medium of live-action or do you think it’s practically impossible because Dragon Ball is simply too fantastical, or out-there to ever work in that format?

I think it could work, but it would need to be heavily CG based. If I were making an origin Goku movie I'd actually make kid Goku full CG and have actors play Bulma, Roshi and Yamcha.