Saiyan Island

A newspaper in Chile ran an article on Dragonball: Evolution, and in it the budget of the movie was unveiled. According to the paper, the production budget was only 45 million, much less than the previous $100 million estimates. What this means is the film has already made about half its budget back in Asia alone.

There’s really no doubt now that the film will be profitable, and so sequels are a definite possibility. IGN spoke with Justin Chatwin (Goku) and James Marsters (Piccolo) who were incredibly enthusiastic about the idea… Marsters even wants 6 more films!

He went on: “All I know is I’ve been signed to three movies, but I would like to make five — seven of them. You could just pretty much paint by numbers using the wealth of source material to easily get the seven films. There’s that much there.”

Meanwhile, Chatwin is also obviously thinking about Dragonball as a series of movies, with the actor seeing Evolution as an introduction piece to the wider universe.
He said: “There’s a whole generation of kids waiting to be introduced to Dragonball, so this first movie is really important for that. I mean the main plot is the battle between Piccolo and Goku, but this first film still serves to introduce the characters and where they’re from and what they’re deals are. And so to cover that ground really takes up most of the first movie.”

He goes on: “I know what they have in store for the second one and it’s really cool! It’s more in the vein of the Dragonball saga… it goes into other places, there’s other characters, other fighters and there’s a lot of action that is just really awesome.

“It actually goes more into Dragon Ball Z land and it’s just really exciting. It goes into the whole legend of Dragonball. I cant really say more than that, but it made me think this is a cool franchise to be a part off because there’s so much we haven’t shown yet.”

20th Century Fox has moved back the opening of Dragonball: Evolution two days to Friday, April 10th, 2009 from the previous Wednesday, April 8th release date. I’ve lost count on how many date changes this makes.

IGN interviewed James Marsters (Piccolo) who talked about everything Dragonball: Evolution, including how faithful the movie is to the source material. Read the full interview on IGN.com.

IGN: You knew Piccolo very well going in. What is the take on him like in the film versus what most people know from Dragon Ball Z and other source material?

Marsters: This character is nothing like you’re going to recognize from Dragon Ball Z because this is a story that happens before Dragon Ball Z. In the actual source material that we were adapting, we were only dealing with Dragon Ball. In Dragon Ball, Lord Piccolo is a very old, kind of shriveled Namic. This green guy who has to walk with a walking stick, he’s so old. And at the very end of the season, when he finally fights little Goku – and Goku in the manga is only 7 years old – he throws off his coat and it’s actually kind of surprising he has a body left at all. So, my kind of template to do this Piccolo was, “Let’s make him as old as possible.” We don’t want to make him as decrepit as the manga because he is the only villain for this part of the story of Goku, so we should make him maybe a little more powerful. But let’s not give the audience the young Piccolo yet, because in the story, Lord Piccolo comes back to the Earth to get the Dragonballs to wish himself young and then take over the Earth. And if we started Piccolo being young, there would be no reason for him to get the Dragonballs in the first place.

IGN: I’m very impressed talking to you about your knowledge of the source material. I’d assume some of your costars might have been a lot more unfamiliar with it all. Did anyone ever come to you for some advice?

Marsters: [Laughs] I think that if any of them didn’t know the source material going into the project, they certainly started reading it and watching it to prepare for the shoot because I didn’t really get the sense that anyone was behind the ball. We didn’t really talk about the plotline in Dragon Ball Z. There’s enough plotline to be talking about in Dragon Ball. But I didn’t start talking to them about Vegeta or Bojack and all of that – or Boo. [Laughs] I just kept my mouth shut about that because that’s just too complex.

IGN: Fans are always concerned when there’s an adaptation that it holds true to or respects the source material. As a fan yourself, can you speak to that?

Marsters: Well, that’s the thing, man. I think that we have made an artistic risk because we have decided to be very respectful of the source material. I think Akira Toriyama – I hope, I haven’t talked to him about it – but I suspect he would be pleased that we didn’t start this movie with Dragon Ball Z. That the first shot of our hero is not blond Goku firing a massive energy blast and wiping a mountain out. That would be very cool, but that’s not the beginning of the story. The beginning of the story, for the manga, is a 7 year old kid fighting midgets. He starts it way more on a smaller level and builds it up. And then by the time that Goku is that massive guy with the blond hair, then we’re more invested in him. And so, we have decided not to do Dragon Ball Z, but to do Dragon Ball.

Instead of having Goku as a 7 year old fighting midgets, we take him at 17, just on his 18th birthday, so thematically, we’re in the same ball park, but we get to push it a little more towards Z. But still doing justice to this character of Goku and where he starts. Remember in the first Spider-Man movie, everyone was like, “Where are all the special effects? Where is all the big stuff?” And Sam Raimi was like, “We’ve got to start this dude at the beginning. This is what we’re doing.” And I think it would have been easier money if we would have just blown it out with Dragon Ball Z right from the beginning. But I don’t think that would have been as true to the story and to the source material. I’m kind of proud that we’ve taken the risk in trusting the audience and that they’ll want to see the beginning of this character. In that way, when he is more massive, it’ll be way cooler.

So I don’t know, man. People that only know Dragon Ball Z and only want Dragon Ball Z, they’re going to have to get used to this. But people that really know the material, they’re going to be well pleased.

It looks like TV spots have finally begun airing in the U.S., one of which you can view in the player below. With only 19 days to go, are you excited?

Also check out 5 UK character spots after the break.
Read more…

Brian Tyler’s epic original soundtrack album for Dragonball: Evolution is now available to purchase on iTunes, Amazon, and in stores across America. We highly recommend you pick it up, because it could be the best thing from the movie. Click here to buy if you have iTunes or here for Amazon.

Watch Tyler conduct “The Legend” from the soundtrack:

Dragonball Evolution opened to $10.1 million dollars in Asia this weekend, premiering at No.1 in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

At No. 4, Fox’s “Dragonball Evolution” premiered in eight Asian markets before its April 8 domestic opening. Director James Wong’s live-action adaptation of the famous Japanese cartoon series created by Akira Toriyama co-stars Justin Chatwin and Chow Yun-fat and drew $10.1 million from 2,110 screens.

Following heavy prerelease promotion in the region, it premiered at No. 1 in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore. The China opening tally, $3.4 million from 855 locales, was Fox’s fourth-highest weekend opening in the market. “Dragonball’s” No. 2 Japan bow produced $3.3 million from 540 screens.

Via.

Dragonball Evolution is now playing in theaters across Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and China. While early reviews are mixed, we’ll just have to wait and see for ourselves when it hits North America on April 8th. We’ll have our review up then, so stay tuned.

A brand new TV spot from the UK with a couple of new scenes has made its way online.

- All clips removed by Fox -