Making a Dragon Ball Z Film Franchise Work

[Bullza]

I still consider that racist, that they will not even take the risk.

Would you take the risk? If you were in charge of a $150 million movie would you take the chance casting an asian actor when you could get a white actor whose equally talented but vastly increases the odds of the movie making a profit?

Asian movies cast asians. India movies cast indians, they just go with what's brought them success.

Goku isn't even from asia, it's not like they'd be making Ichigo Kurosaki white. In certain images he could pass for asian or white. Him being able to act the part is what's most important.

It's not like they couldn't get other asians in it as other characters.

[Hellspawn28]

What?! How is it that studios only get 50% of their overseas revenue?

The other money goes to the international market. Someone needs to distributed and market these movies in other parts of the world. DBE didn't make enough money and I'm betting Fox lost money on the movie. The movie was not a huge box office bomb, but they still spend a good amount of money marketing the movie. I remember the movie had a toyline, children books, music movie soundtrack, a video game on the PSP and TV commercials. The movie didn't do very well on DVD neither given that the movie sold poorly on home video as well.

[dbboxkaifan]

Jon Foo has the look and he has a martial arts background but he can't act worth a damn. Ian Anthony is too old and would be more suited to Vegeta. Keanu Reeves is also too old and can't act plus it'd be distracting knowing Keanu Reeves is Goku.

It needs someone young in his early 20's who looks the part, can act and pull off the goofy moments and the tough guy moments.

Fair enough. Who'd you think could do Goku's role?

A mix of Henry Cavill (muscular body) and Andrew Garfield (he still looks young) for Son Goku would be ideal.

[Hellspawn28]

I feel like the Cell saga should be the stopping point for the DBZ movies. I still can't see Buu working in live action since people would laugh at his character then be scared of him.

that looks pretty creepy to me man
also Voldemort didn't look scary in the HP movies, he looked kinda awkward I guess but his look didn't care me.

I seen that image before. I think Super Buu and Kid Buu could work in live action, but they will likely use Fat Buu if they want to stay faithful to the series. Fat Buu is too silly to work in live action. If they have Super Buu hatch from his egg instead then fans are going to bitch about it. If they do pick a actor for Buu then I think Jim Carrey can pull off Buu. I think Andy Serkis would be perfect for Kid Buu.

Freeza, Cell and Buu would need to be done with motion capture. Piccolo should be fine with make up only and I think Rick Baker would be perfect to do the makeup for a DBZ movie.

[UltimateHammerBro]

also Voldemort didn't look scary in the HP movies, he looked kinda awkward I guess but his look didn't care me.

I always imagined Voldemort's non-nose as the perfect base for a live action Krillin

[Bullza]

Who'd you think could do Goku's role?

I think Joseph Gordon Levitt a decade ago when he was in his early 20's would have made a good Goku if he put on a couple stone of muscle and got ripped.

You mentioned Andrew Garfield and he plays Spider-man who is a similar kind of role to Goku being a hero that mixes a lot of humour with the serious heroic moments.

Levitt is a great actor, he's done comedy roles and dramatic roles, sometimes in the same film, he could pull a role like that off well. Plus he kinda looks asian and he's 5"9 the exact same height as Goku.

He wasn't a well known star back then either and it's better that way because you don't think "Oh look it's ___ as Goku".

[Bullza]

I seen that image before. I think Super Buu and Kid Buu could work in live action, but they will likely use Fat Buu if they want to stay faithful to the series. Fat Buu is too silly to work in live action. If they have Super Buu hatch from his egg instead then fans are going to bitch about it.

Fans would have to realise that this would be a live action movie and not the anime. There'd have to be changes, comic and even book adaptations change or cut things.

Fat Buu would be a stupid, he's a fat childlike pink blob with a cape and gloves who turns people into milk and cookies. It'd be ridiculous. They could just start with Super Buu it wouldn't be that big a deal, if they were doing a movie based on the Buu saga they couldn't have everything in there from the manga.

Also this would be a great Frieza.

http://andimoo.deviantart.com/art/Live- ... -344628530

[DBZ Mick]

Fat Boo is pretty creepy and gross/disgusting in his own way IMO but yeah, I think going with Evil Boo is the best thing to do.

[Hellspawn28]

I still consider that racist, that they will not even take the risk.

Would you take the risk? If you were in charge of a $150 million movie would you take the chance casting an asian actor when you could get a white actor whose equally talented but vastly increases the odds of the movie making a profit?

The thing is that people are going to see a DBZ movie because of the name alone. People saw Transformers for Transformers and not to see Evan Stevens 2.0 .

[Bullza]

Yeah but those Transformers were CGI Robot Aliens. With a Dragon Ball movie the main cast would be comprised of real life human actors.

It would do well on due to it's name but studios try to give an appeal to not just fans but maybe more so the non fans because the fanbase alone isn't always enough. Transformers didn't have that many fans for it make as much money as it did.

[WhoIsTheStrongest]

They could cast a half-white half-asian to make people happy.

Also for something like DBZ, despite how wacky and crazy it can get, has to be treated with an epic budget and epic care. To make something that isn't really there become reality, it takes a lot of production value and time.

With making any anime or video game series into a movie, the first part of the formula and success = it has to be very good. DB Evolution was not good or very good.

I wonder where we'd be at, with live action anime/super hero movies, right now.... if James Cameron actually went ahead and directed Battle Angel Alita or Xmen, like he wanted to in the 90s and early 00's.

[RocktheDragon]

At this point I can't see anyone ever putting in the time and money into a DB production to make it work. The amount of money it would cost to be somewhat faithful to the series is way over what any studio in any country would want to spend to bring DB to the big screen. It's a shame too because a full fledged DBZ movie would be all kinds of awesome. If there was a way to make it work on a smaller scale and budget I'd up for it though, if they could retain the spirit of the manga/anime and of the characters personalities. That would be a great step in the right direction and we could at least have something somewhat faithful to the spirit of the series on the big screen. I don't have much hope for any of that though.

[WhoIsTheStrongest]

At this point

Exactly, at this point, I dont think they're ready to make a good DBZ movie. But the potential is out there. Maybe in 3-5 years as the live-action anime formula starts to build and become even more developed, maybe then a DBZ movie could be done tastefully.

If James Cameron had done Battle Angel Alita in the late 90s, by now we'd probably be ready for an epic DBZ film. It's tlike that awkward phases in the early 2000's when superhero movies were being made. We saw some horrible cheesy superhero movies. Eventually though, they are starting to get superhero movies right these days and have a formula down. I wouldn't like DBZ to look like the Avengers movie, but I'd like it to have the same budget, film know-how, and care as that movie did.

[Bullza]

What needs to happen is the same thing with how Marvel turned out. In the 90's they did several terrible low budget films like Howard the Duck (Why?) then eventually did Blade which was a hit, X-men which was a big hit and Spider-man was an enormous hit that pretty much made sure all the rest got movies.

Nothing like that has happened with anime yet. Speed Racer and Astro Boy failed (why wouldn't they) so they don't bother.

It needs the Bleach movie to come out and actually be good and well liked by fans and non fans and for it to make a couple hundred million. That way Hollywoof will think if that was successful how about making Naruto? And then that would need to really well.

In the end they'd decide to give DBZ another go being it's the most popular one and that time it'd be made on a big budget rather than being like DBE which was treated no better than a video game movie like Street Fighter or Tekken.

[Hellspawn28]

I think the next live action movie will be more darker and serious. I found DBE to be campy even for DB standers. The movie felt like it a comic book movie that you seen in the 90's since a lot of comic book films in the 90's had the same campy tone like Batman Forever, The Phantom and Spawn.

[Bullza]

DBE came across as campy because it was so terribly written ("Geeko") and most of the cast were TV level actors who gave a terrible performance.

The Avengers got it right perfectly, it was fun, funny, it felt like a comic book movie unlike The Dark Knight movies but wasn't campy and people could still take it seriously when it was trying to be.

Dragon Ball just needs to be the same. They need to cast a Goku who can pull off humour and appear likable and can act. Justin Chatwin couldn't do any of that.

It all just looked cheap and fake.

[i'mfuckingevil]

There were a lot of things wrong with DBE and Goku's casting was the prime reason.

[shinmaru]

DragonBallZ should never be a live action movie because they need to change so much of the characters to make it fit In a live Action Movie,
you won't recognise the character anymore and if they make it like the anime they will look like punkies:crazy:
I think that's why Japan never made one before. Dragonball Is easier to make.