'Dragonball' movie set to roll
By Borys Kit

Nov 14, 2007

Twentieth Century Fox is finally moving forward with a live-action adaptation of the hugely popular manga "Dragonball," casting the stars of the movie and setting a release date of next summer.

Justin Chatwin is starring as the hero while James Marsters will play the villain in the sci-fi adventure, which will be directed by James Wong. The movie has been penciled in for a worldwide release date of Aug. 15, 2008. Stephen Chow, the filmmaker behind "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer," is producing.

"Dragonball" is one of the most successful Japanese cultural exports of all time. The manga, created by Akira Toriyama and published by Tokyo's Jump Comics, was adapted into graphic novels, video games and a phenomenally successful television series that ran in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America. "Dragonball's" popularity also generated more than $4 billion in merchandising sales. In North America, the property achieved the zenith of its popularity under the name "Dragonball Z."

The story follows an adult humanoid alien named Goku, who discovers that he was sent to Earth to blend in and destroy our population but instead elects to protect it from an oncoming alien onslaught bent on dominating the universe and controlling the mystical objects from which the film takes its name.

Chatwin, who will play Goku, has already begun training under the auspices of stunt performance company 87Eleven, which has executed and designed action pieces in pictures such as "The Matrix," "The Bourne Supremacy," "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and "300." Marsters is playing the villainous Piccolo.

Wong rewrote the previous draft by Ben Ramsey.

Production begins later this year. Other major roles are currently being cast.

Chatwin, repped by WMA, is best known for his playing Tom Cruise's son in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds."

Marsters is best known for his role as vampire Spike on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Piccolo. He is repped by the Kohner Agency and Himber Entertainment

Wong co-wrote and directed "Finale Destination" and "Final Destination 3," and was a writer-exec producer on "The X-Files." He is repped by Endeavor.

I'm not really sure how I'll be able to take something like this seriously.

This had me at James Marsters.

I wonder what arch they'll be basing this off of.

Interesting. Well, Stephen Chow is producing, so I guess we can assume that the film won't be taking itself all that seriously (?)

Apparently Minni Me will play Pilaf

Well it's not like the show/movies and comic series that preceded them ever took themselves seriously. I just hope we don't have the horrible "let's chat for 90% of the fight" style of that the series became known for later on (when the animated series was called Dragonball Z).

Yeah, but seeing that sort of stuff in a cartoon is far different from seeing it live action. Especially considering all the powering up, the different characters, talking animals, aliens, hair styles...

If they try and translate the majority of that stuff to a live action film, it'll come out really weird.

Sounds like the Saiyan/Vegeta Saga.

this could be a cool looking movie but i doubt it will be any good.

Sounds more like the Piccolo arc from the original Dragon Ball, hence the villainous Piccolo as mentioned in the article.

Good news to me. I never thought a Dragon Ball movie could be successfully made until I saw Shaolic Soccer, so seeing Chow a part of this gives me hope.

Chow rolls to Fox for 'Dragonball'
By Leslie Simmons
Dec 19, 2007

Chow Yun-Fat is the latest to join 20th Century Fox's live-action adaptation of "Dragonball."

Chow will play Master Roshi. He rounds out a cast that includes Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Emmy Rossum and Jamie Chung. Chow is repped by CAA.

"Dragonball" is shooting in Mexico City and Los Angeles.

The film, directed by James Wong, follows Goku (Chatwin), a warrior alien who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the universe and controlling mystical objects known as Dragon Balls. Stephen Chow is producing.

Master Roshi is Goku's mentor, helping him achieve the highest state of fighting and spiritual powers.

I can't really see Chow Yun Fat as an old pervert.

Lol. Master Roshi??

I just can't take this movie seriously. I imagine something similar to the live-action Mortal Combat movie.

Thought this was cool.

This is like the 1994 Street Fighter movie for this generation. This movie doesn't stand a chance.

In-depth IGN article: http://movies.ign.com/articles/928/928308p1.html

I'm actually cautiously optomistic about this.

I sent the trailer to a friend of mine, who thought it looked worse than both Alien vs. Predator movies and Hitman combined. Another friend he'd rather see it than Transformers 2. I'm in the former.

This movie looks awful, and I bet this will potentially be the last great critical and commercial disaster of this decade. No, really, this looks as bad as Battlefield Earth. Might be worse.

Im a casual DBZ fan and when i watched the trailer i thought it was a joke. A comparison to the MK or Mario movie isnt far fetched. It looks absolutely terrible.

There's a trailer out already?

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer...teaser-trailer

I can't get it to play.

Consider yourself lucky. What the fuck was that? I've always thought that adaptations need to be good movies first and good adaptations second, but that looks like Street Fighter mixed with Bulletproof Monk, with a touch of Fast and the Furious. None of that screams DB at me.