Untitled Evangelion Project
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This article or section contains information about one or more scheduled or expected films. The content may change as the film's release approaches and more information becomes available. |  |
| Untitled Evangelion Project aka "Evangelion Live Action Movie" (ELAM) or "Live Action Evangelion Movie" (LAEM) |
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| Directed by | TBA |
| Produced by | TBA |
| Written by | Hideaki Anno (creator), Matt Greenfield (screenplay, no writer - producer) |
| Distributed by | ADV Films |
| IMDb profile | |
Pre-production of a live action version of Neon Genesis Evangelion was announced in May 2003 by the Houston-based anime distributor ADV Films, who hold world-wide rights to the series outside of Asia and Australia. The film will be made by ADV, Gainax and Weta Workshop Ltd.. Dubbed the Evangelion Live Action Movie by fans ("ELAM" for short) and Live Action Evangelion Movie ("LAEM") by its detractors, its release is currently projected to occur at any time ranging from as early as 2008 to as late as 2015; in March 2005, Matt Greenfield was reported to have indicated that the movie would be finished in "at least a year, most likely 3 or 4."[1] Hideaki Anno, the director of Evangelion, will not be directing this live-action movie, though at the beginning it was suggested that he would have some sort of supervisory role.
As of August 2005, production of the movie is on hold as a director has yet to become available. In December 2005, Fortune Magazine reported in an article about ADV Films, that ADV has raised "about half of the $100 million to $120 million" needed to produce the Neon Genesis Evangelion live-action movie.[2] It's not completely clear if this money was raised by ADV alone, or portions of that amount was contributed by Gainax.
ADV stated that fans could expect a major announcement concerning the film to be made sometime in the Autumn of 2006. As of April 2007, there has been no such announcement.
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[edit] Cast
Despite many rumors found on the internet, there is no set cast for the movie due to the fact that no director has yet been confirmed. It is unlikely that a complete cast will be confirmed more than a couple of months prior to the commencement of production, as several of the leads are supposed to be young teenagers; it's been stated by several parties that one of the goals of the production is to cast children of ages appropriate to their roles, and advance confirmation may be risky considering the physical development of the average 14-year-old.
[edit] False Selections
For a time, reports floated about claiming that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe would play Shinji Ikari, and American pop star Lindsay Lohan would portray Asuka Langley. These rumors were proven false. It's since been noted that virtually all casting rumours floating around on the internet are completely unofficial as well as unlikely, many having been based on the "Dream Casts" of enthusiastic fans or nonsensical speculative magazine articles (such as Anime Insider Magazine's infamous list of suggestions).
[edit] Issues of Ethnicity
In the earliest days of disclosure, Tiffany Grant of ADV unintentionally helped to spark a small batch of controversies through interviews and self-published articles, casually citing that the film would feature a cast "mostly of European descent", as well as mentioning ADV's toying with the idea of giving the English dub actors (herself being perhaps the most well-known of these) cameos in the film.[3] While the latter was torn into mostly by self-made ADV opponents and quickly burned itself out, the former became the subject of wide-spread and heated online debate for well over a year, in heavy-handed discussions on everything from artistic preservation of literary works to the racial politics of Hollywood. Not long after Grant's statements, tensions on the subject of race rose when concept art produced by Weta Workshop was released featuring character slug names such as "Kate Rose" (in lieu of Asuka Langley), "Ray" (Rei Ayanami), and "Susan Whitnall" (Misato Katsuragi).
In 2005, tensions on the subject of race were substantially reduced when Weta Workshop updated its official website, adding a section which featured all of its previously released Evangelion concept art labeled with the original Japanese character names as well as several references to Tokyo 3, cited as "New Tokyo".[4] Online approval among fans seemed unanimous, though whatever weight this gesture may hold with regard to the film's final cast remains uncertain. Richard Taylor, head of Effects and Creatures at Weta Workshop and one of the project's most enthusiastic proponents, publicly expressed his belief at the 2006 Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Brisbane that the film should have a predominantly Asian cast in order to work effectively in the international market.[5]
[edit] Production
With all of its dependency on hearsay, and the resulting tendency for fluctuation, what can be said about the project with confidence rests almost entirely on whatever has been publicly stated last by an official party.
[edit] Tekkoshocon 2006 Panel
The following statements were made on April 2, 2006 at Tekkoshocon panel featuring Matt Greenfield and wife Tiffany Grant.[6] (Point summaries courtesy of EvaMonkey.com):
- Matt Greenfield says that after the completion of the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Weta approached ADV about approaching Gainax to do a live action Eva movie, but work on it was delayed by work on King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia.
- Three "A List" directors that are also fans of Evangelion approached ADV about the project, not the other way around.
- Greenfield talks about getting their pitch package together and that "the first thing is Robin Williams talking about Evangelion", who is apparently a big Evangelion fan, and the appearance of the Mass Production Eva toy in One Hour Photo is entirely his doing.
- Celebrities have been inquiring directly to ADV about being involved in Live Action Evangelion.
- The director to be signed will most likely be the first to have room in their schedule.
- Greenfield acknowledges the uncertainty of the final product due to the nature of film making being driven by the director.
- The slug script was written by a well known writer who has written several well known sci-fi movies. The slug script will be re-written to fit the tastes and vision of the director selected.
- Greenfield acknowledges that the children will most likely be age appropriate. The kids will be picked and then the adults will be cast to work well with the children. Thus, casting won't actually happen until the director is picked: child actors will have to be cast in their roles close to production, after which adult actors will be cast to match the children. Thus casting Daniel Radcliffe as Shinji or Emma Watson as Asuka would simply be impossible because of the age mismatch between the characters and the actors. Interestingly, he said that Anno felt that Emma Watson, when she was 14 years old, would have been a first pick for Asuka, but she was already too old for the part when planning for the live action movies began.
- Tiffany Grant asserts that Weta gets 20 times more email about Evangelion than The Lord of the Rings.
- Greenfield says a director will most likely be signed by the end of the year.
- Greenfield says they don't want to make it for profit, but because they want to do it, and they want to do it right, and do it justice in the same way that Lord of the Rings did.
- Weta Workshop customer service manager Darren Reddiex stated "Currently this project hasn't been greenlit. We ourselves are very hopeful the project will go ahead as, given the opportunity, we'd love to continue working on it ourselves." when responding to a fan's email.
In addition, fans were told they could expect to hear some sort of big announcement regarding a director for the project some time during the Fall of 2006. No announcements of any kind were made throughout the rest of 2006
[edit] Story
Little has been revealed officially outside the realm of concept art pieces produced by Weta Workshop and statements of intention and desire from the film's producers, ADV Films. Almost all expoundatory information gathered thus far related to the actual content of the film(s) is based on internet fan discussion, which has been running fairly consistently since the project's inception in May of 2003, is speculative in nature, and ranges from difficult to impossible to cite. Much of it, however, can be traced back to one of the earliest forums devoted to the project, hosted at triviabeing.net[7]
[edit] "A-6 Treatment"
No official storyline has been announced, though some sources indicated that the film would most likely be based upon the first few episodes of the TV series. Both resulting from and parallel to the divulgence of this likelihood, fan speculation on the internet gradually gave rise to a wide expectation that the movie will be a liberal adaptation of the first six episodes; this approach came to be known as the "A-6 Treatment". Proponents of the A-6 Treatment theorize that, while allowing for some divergence from the original storyline, the film will focus on Shinji's arrival in New Tokyo and the set of difficult transitions awaiting him there, as well as establish and emphasize character relationships between Shinji, Misato, and possibly Rei. The A-6 Treatment presents what is considered to be a more domestic, character-driven approach to the film as opposed to a starkly action-driven film.
Opponents to the A-6 approach argue that its basic description rules out a lot of important story points, not to mention a handful of central characters who are not introduced in the story until well after the events implied in the A-6 timeframe. However, in 2005, Matt Greenfield announced his desire for, and promised effort toward, an Evangelion trilogy; if the first film is successful, sequels would follow the original storyline of the series and take on an orientation more suited to emphasize action and plot. With the revelation of the desired trilogy, the A-6 Treatment has become somewhat less debated, and while nothing has been finalized with regard to the films' individual plots, it is generally accepted that A-6 or something like it will occupy the first film.
Trivia: While the term "A-6" is believed to have originally been coined by a fan, using "A" to refer to the first (alpha) part of the story and "6" to refer to the number of series episodes roughly adapted by said part, "A-6" is also a production number appended to the title of "I SHINJI", a piece of music by Shiro Sagisu that was used in the original series as the theme for Shinji Ikari, so that the composition's full title is "I SHINJI (A-6)".
[edit] Angels
Out of all released concept art pieces, only two Angels are explored; the first being the flying geometric monolith Ramiel from TV episodes 5 and 6, and the second being Evangelion-possessing fungus Bardiel from episode 18. The presence of the latter has often been taken by fans to suggest that the film will encapsulate a broad chunk of the original plot, such that would include Bardiel, if not the story in its entirety. However, in light of the producers' revealed desire for a trilogy, coupled with the fact that the Weta concept art was released several years ago, the artwork may no longer be the best indicator of what will be included in the first film.
[edit] Asuka
Similar arguments to the one revolving around Bardiel have sprung up on internet forums in response the prevalent depictions of Asuka's EVA-02, which did not originally appear in the series until episode 8, well after the theoretical A-6 story arc would come to its conclusion. Despite at one time being one of the more popular questions about the movie, especially as the six-episode format began to gain in popularity and notoriety, no information has been released by an official party regarding whether or not Asuka will appear in the first film. When asked by a fan if we would get to see Asuka "kick ass" in the movie (then understood to be only a single movie), Matt Greenfield replied simply, "No." It is unknown whether his response was related to restrictions imposed by an A6-like storyline being forged at the time, or if a "Yes" response would have simply been rendered dishonest by the process of Westernization and name replacement.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- eva.trivialbeing.net — Fan site collecting data on the live movie.
- The project page for the movie on Weta Workshop's website (only conceptual art is shown so far).
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Kamikazecon" by Jeff La Vergne, Mar 27 2005
- ^ "It's... Profitmón!" by Daniel Roth, December 12, 2005
- ^ "Notes About the Live Action Evangelion Movie" by Tiffany Grant
- ^ Featured Project - Neon Genesis Evangelion, Official Site of Weta Workshop
- ^ Richard Tayor Podcast, Supernova Pop Culture Expo 2006
- ^ "10 Years of Death and Rebirth" (Google video), Tekkoshocon 2006
- ^ Trivialbeing.net>Forum Network>Anime>Evangelion Live Action Movie
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| Creators: | Hideaki Anno • Yoshiyuki Sadamoto • Gainax |
| TV Series: | Neon Genesis Evangelion |
| Films: | Death and Rebirth • The End of Evangelion • Revival of Evangelion • Rebuild of Evangelion • Untitled Evangelion live action movie |
| Characters: | Asuka • Gendo • Kaworu • Misato • Rei • Ritsuko • Kaji • Shinji • Toji • Yui |
| Glossary: | Eva Units • Angels • Human Instrumentality Project • Timeline |
| Video Games: | Ayanami Raising Project • Girlfriend of Steel • Girlfriend of Steel 2 • Evangelion 64 • Shinji Ikari Raising Project • Shinji and Good Friends • Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 |
| Misc: | List of media and episodes • "A Cruel Angel's Thesis" • "Komm, süsser Tod" • Angelic Days manga • Red Cross Book • ReDeath • Topics |
