Where did DBE fail, where the Autobots and Joes succeeded?

[samuraigundam]

What needs to happen is we all need to pool together cash to send one of us to film school, so that individual eventually becomes a brilliant and renowned director who can make it happen.

I volunteer myself. PM me and I'll give you my mailing address so you can start sending the checks.

How about we pull all of the Dragon Ball fandom together to contribute to a large fund, get together to write a good script, and when we reach 50 million dollars, we get a studio to make our ideal film!

I figure that by the time we reach the 50 million, pigs will not only be flying, but talking as well! Which would make casting Oolong that much easier!

Seriously though, I wonder if there are enough DB fans in the world to make such a thing possible.

[Chuquita]

Does anyone know what the typical time frame would be for FOX to announce what, if anything, they're doing with their Dragon Ball license? Or would them dropping/selling the license to another company or studio be something that would come up in any news feed?

[Onikage725]

I gave up trying to predict what FOX was going to do a looooooong time ago.

[Kendamu]

Does anyone know what the typical time frame would be for FOX to announce what, if anything, they're doing with their Dragon Ball license? Or would them dropping/selling the license to another company or studio be something that would come up in any news feed?

From my experience, they either announce something really far in advance and then sit on it for years before doing anything with it or they announce it all at once with barely any notice.

[Chuquita]

Does anyone know what the typical time frame would be for FOX to announce what, if anything, they're doing with their Dragon Ball license? Or would them dropping/selling the license to another company or studio be something that would come up in any news feed?

From my experience, they either announce something really far in advance and then sit on it for years before doing anything with it or they announce it all at once with barely any notice.

Really? That's unfortunate.
I guess this means its just a waiting game to see if the listing on IMDB is proven true or not. If 2011 passes with nothing spoken of concerning FOX's DB license, I can consider the license dropped.

I'd really like to see a different studio, or more like a different crew take the license, but I'm not sure if that'll happen at all.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I doubt they'll drop it. There won't be many American comic book licenses they can get because of Disney/Marvel and Warner/DC. There's also very few other anime, or manga series that are as big as DragonBall that could have a built in fanbase. And I seriously doubt they'll be able to get the bigger video game franchises to adapt.

[SparkyPantsMcGee]

I doubt they'll drop it. There won't be many American comic book licenses they can get because of Disney/Marvel and Warner/DC. There's also very few other anime, or manga series that are as big as DragonBall that could have a built in fanbase. And I seriously doubt they'll be able to get the bigger video game franchises to adapt.

Well maybe if they handled their licensed work properly then they wouldn't have this sort of problem on their hands. Really if they can't make a movie right then they should drop the license and let someone who can pick it up.

[Super Sayian Prime]

It'll be very interesting to see how Walden and Fox handle Narnia from now on. Their (Fox + Walden) adaptations haven't done well in terms of box office (some have been the bigger bombs of recent memory, but there were a few that did make money), nor have many done well critically, from either professionals, or their fans.

[Dayspring]

Its been noted that the story for both Transformers movie were horrible to true fans.

Megatron: 'They deserve to die!!!'
Optimus: 'The humans deserve to choose for themselves!'

Optimus Prime is pro-suicide?!

On-topic: Transformers had Megan Fox and Shia Leboeuf, with Michael blam-bam-carchase-kaboom Bay directing a movie about cars and action. To be marketable to any TF fan of any incarnation, all it needed was good CG and transforming car robots in action. TF2 had the advantage of being all that AND a sequel to TF1, so marketing was easy.

Can't comment on G.I.Joe, I still haven't seen it and still don't intend on seeing it (unless it's free on TV at one point). Marketing was Halo meets Power Rangers for reasons I still don't get.

DBE wasn't close to any Dragonball incarnation, starred a bunch of nobodies, and was directed by Frith-knows-who (free hrududus to whoever get that literary reference). It also had a negligeable amount of marketing.

[Hellspawn28]

Did anyone think that DBE was going to be a box office hit anyways?

[Chuquita]

Did anyone think that DBE was going to be a box office hit anyways?

Until the really big details came out, I was a bit worried it would end up as this big thing ala Transformers or the Spiderman Trilogy despite having a largely OOC Son Goku in it. Not that I wouldn't like to have a big live action DB movie; but I didn't want this production with Chatku to be it. I feel silly to have been worried now. Once it came out as a small production on a low budget with little advertising that FOX quietly pulled out of U.S. theaters just several weeks into its run and didn't even show in theaters in some European countries I felt foolish for worrying that DBE would somehow eclipse or really change things for the DB franchise and the fandom.


Even though I didn't like the majority of stuff in the film; following its production was, in my opinion, a very interesting train wreck. I wouldn't be against a complete reboot with a new director and new cast. Knowing the Japanese names for the individual dragon balls is nice, but including more martial arts (maybe casting a few actors/actresses who have experience in martial arts too) and writing an in-character Goku would be better imo. It's why I find the listing for a sequel in 2011 on IMDB so curious. You can't post a listing there unless you're with a company, right?

[Velasa]

and was directed by Frith-knows-who (free hrududus to whoever get that literary reference).

Caught it automatically and squealed like a moron read the book twice, must have watched the film a dozen times starting when I was 5. ....I had an interesting childhood.

As to the topic? Well, my memories of G.I.Joe are intensely vague (I know I watched it but can't remember anything) and I never saw the movie, and I never watched the original Transformers cartoon (everything I knew was from backstories in Beast Wars) though I did see both those movies. And I unfortunately went to se DBE on opening day, just to make the hurting stop. But completely disregarding correlation to plot and ability to connect with the original fans- G.I.Joe and Transformers had budgets. Specifically for special effects, which as Avatar has taught us can sell a movie almost completely on their own. Those movies had budgets and were made very shiny, which caught your average viewer who didn't care about where anything came from. Whereas DBE had... no budget, and didn't appeal to anyone save small children who will look back one day and realize it sucked.

[jaywonder]

I think a big budget animated film would work better. Toei could pull out all the stops



I wonder if a CGI based film would work....

[Hellspawn28]

I knew DBE was going to bomb after the first images where shown from the trailer, the movie should have cameout in 04 like Fox plan to. The movie would not been anybetter if a Japanese studio like Toei directed it. Devilman was made a Japanese live action movie, and the movie sucked balls. The movie would not been any better if it was done by the USA.

Sorry, but I don't think Dragon Ball can be done in live action in my opinon.

[samuraigundam]

I think a big budget animated film would work better. Toei could pull out all the stops



I wonder if a CGI based film would work....

CGI? What would be the point? CG films cant capture the subtlety of hand drawn animation ( Avatar doesnt count, they used motion capture ) , and we already have well animated DB movies.

I think a live action film could work. Anything can be adapted succesfully into live action, with the right production behind it. It just needs a director willing to stick close to the material, and pull out all the stops. If it were an adaptation starting with Dragon Ball, I think someone familiar with fantasy, like Peter Jackson would be ideal. If it were an adaptation starting with Dragon Ball Z , well, Jackson might still be able to pull it off, with an equally intuitive fight director by his side.

[Ultimate_DB_Fan]

I personally feel that the biggest mistake made by FOX was not jumping straight into Z. More casual viewers are/were exposed to the Z-portion of the show, anyways.
You make both Nappa and Vegeta come to Earth searching for the Dragon Balls, have Goku and co. beat them, save the sequel for Namek, with Goku's eventual fight against Freeza and his transformation into a Super Saiyan. THAT would've made a heck of a lot more sense than what they did.

[Metalwario64]

I personally feel that the biggest mistake made by FOX was not jumping straight into Z. More casual viewers are/were exposed to the Z-portion of the show, anyways.
You make both Nappa and Vegeta come to Earth searching for the Dragon Balls, have Goku and co. beat them, save the sequel for Namek, with Goku's eventual fight against Freeza and his transformation into a Super Saiyan. THAT would've made a heck of a lot more sense than what they did.

Then they could have made the obligatory prequel film, and title it "Dragon Ball Z: The Story Begins" or something just as cliche.

[Chuquita]

So I did a quick search and it doesn't look like there will be anything at least with the "Reborn" title in it.

http://whois.domaintools.com/dragonballreborn.com

I checked it out, someone in Italy bought the domain name. Something called EURO_MARKETING_SK_SRO if I'm reading it correctly. If I'm reading it incorrectly, feel free to correct me as DomainTools is a bit confusing of a site for me to decipher. ^^;

This furthers the idea that FOX dropped their current DB projects, but probably not the license (yet?). Dropping the license sounds like it would be something I'd hear about in a news feed the way I heard about the Spiderman reboot.

By comparison, here's DBE's:
http://whois.domaintools.com/dragonballthemovie.com