Dragonball Evolution is an upcoming 2009 American live-action film adaptation of the Dragon Ball media franchise being produced by 20th Century Fox. The story centers around the adventures of the lead character, Goku, from his childhood into adulthood. The film began development in 2002, and is directed by James Wong and produced by Stephen Chow. It is scheduled for release on April 8, 2009. Actor Justin Chatwin was cast as Goku, and James Marsters will be portraying Lord Piccolo, the antagonist of the film.
Synopsis
Goku (Justin Chatwin) goes on a journey to find Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) and gather the seven mystical Dragon Balls before the evil Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) can. Along his way, he meets Bulma (Emmy Rossum) who then joins him to help him in his mission. When arriving at Roshi's place, he is not welcomed with an embrace but has to fight Roshi. Roshi soon learns that Goku is the grandson of Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) and thus trains him to prepare him for the ultimate battle with Lord Piccolo to prevent him from collecting the powerful Dragon Balls.
Yahoo has two new clips from Dragonball: Evolution. The first is the full Chi-Chi vs. Chi-Chi fight, and the second is of when Goku meets Roshi for the first time.
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Development:
In March 2002, 20th Century Fox acquired feature film rights to the Dragon Ball franchise. In June 2004, Ben Ramsey, who wrote The Big Hit, was paid $500,000 to adapt Dragonball Z. In 2007, James Wong and Stephen Chow were announced as director and producer respectively, and the project was retitled Dragonball Evolution. Wong rewrote the script. The first full color image of Justin Chatwin as Goku was released in the 24th issue of Weekly Young Jump. Chow was a Dragon Ball fan, citing its "airy and unstrained story [which] leaves much room for creation", but explained he would only serve as producer because he believes that he should only direct stories he had created. 87Eleven, the stunt performance company that worked on The Matrix and 300, is working on the film. Ariel Shaw, who worked on Wong's entries in the Final Destination series and 300, is visual effects supervisor. Robert MacLachlan, who also worked on Wong's Final Destination films, serves as cinematographer. The film was originally slated to be named Dragonball, however on December 10, 2008, a trailer was released using the name Dragonball Evolution and Fox licensed the domain name "DragonballEvolutionMovie.com" indicating the film had been renamed.
Filming:
Shooting began on December 3, 2007, in Mexico City, Mexico. Locations included the Universidad Tecnológica de México. From January 2, 2008, the crew shot at Durango. The crew moved to Estado de México in March of that year for some shots at Nevado de Toluca. Shooting has also been scheduled at Los Angeles, California. In adapting the Dragon Ball manga, the futuristic cities and flying vehicles were kept, however, the anthropomorphic creatures and talking animals (such as Turtle, Oolong and Puar) were dropped. Many of the locations are very Oriental, and there will be some Aztec influence too, particularly from their temples. It was thought that Rossum would wear a blue wig to resemble her anime counterpart, but it was ultimately decided that such a look was too unrealistic. Instead she will have her natural brown with blue streaks. Chatwin will not wear a wig as the director felt Chatwin's hair resembled Goku's. A large amount of Dragonball Evolution was shot in an abandoned jeans factory, also located in Durango, Mexico.
Dragonball Evolution special effects are being done by Amalgamated Dynamics, while the visual effects are being done by Ollin Studios, Zoic Studios, and Imagine Engine. The film will also have the anime style of fighting in Dragon Ball Z, such as chi energy blasts and auras.
Music:
On December 9, 2008, it was confirmed that the theme song will be "Rule" by Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki. The choice was because director James Wong wanted the movie adaptation of a manga/anime born in Japan to be sung by a Japanese person and was particularly impressed with Hamasaki. "Rule" will be used as the theme song for every country's release. The score to Dragonball Evolution was composed by Brian Tyler, who recorded his score with an 82-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox.
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