Ask John: Is Dragonball: Evolution Going to Harm Anime?
Question:
I am worried about how Dragonball: Evolution might set back anime live action movies or even anime in America, that producers might start dropping or not even picking up future anime IPs. Do you think this movie will have a negative effects on anime in the US movie markets?
Answer:
I’m neither a Hollywood executive or insider, nor a thoroughly expert on the moves and deals of the American mainstream film industry. But I do follow Hollywood news and gossip enough to form opinions and speculation. Regardless of what its actual production budget was – speculation ranges from $45 million to $150 million – the Dragonball: Evolution motion picture looks destined to be a commercial failure, although with international grosses and eventual home video revenue the film may be able to at least recover its costs. Logically a failure of the evident scale of Dragonball: Evolution – poor box office along with poor critical and viewer reviews – would cause any American business related to anime licensing, production, and distribution to be cautious about future investments and endeavours. But conventional logic doesn’t, and to a certain degree, can’t apply to Hollywood.
If Hollywood genuinely worked according to rational common sense, the Dragonball: Evolution motion picture wouldn’t have been remotely similar to the film that actually got produced and released. Furthermore, it would be unwise to base millions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and years of work on the results of just one project among many. Even placed into contemporary context, there are mitigating circumstances to be considered. Recent anime and manga related movies haven’t fared well. Speed Racer was a commercial and critical failure. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was widely panned. Now Dragonball: Evolution has underperformed. But Speed Racer was a pet project and risky production with a troubled background from the outset. The Legend of Chun-Li and Dragonball both appear to be low budget productions, by Hollywood standards. Even if we expand our scope of examples to include the recent Watchmen comic book adaptation, the Watchmen film didn’t become a massive blockbuster, but it has earned over $100 million despite struggling through a troubled production history and even a lawsuit to prevent its release.
Certain planned American live action anime and manga film adaptations including Voltron and Lone Wolf & Cub have been canceled recently. But other adaptations including Akira, Ninja Scroll, Cowboy Bebop, and Full Metal Panic have been announced, suggesting that Hollywood does still have faith in the viability of Japanese licenses. Dragon Ball is one of the world’s most successful and popular comic and animation franchises. I believe it’s mandatory to consider the reception of the Dragonball: Evolution movie representative of the film alone, not representative of American interest in the Dragon Ball franchise or manga and anime. I can’t be certain that any of the recently announced American adaptations will ever reach production. Far more manga and anime have been licensed for American live action film adaptation than have actually been filmed. But I don’t foresee the failures of recent American film adaptations hindering the continued acquisition, development, and production of future films and licenses. Hollywood has a short memory for failures. And the American anime distribution industry has always been independent and continues to license and distribute anime entirely unrelated to the movements of Hollywood’s production studios.
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I know the people who hold the rights to Naruto were waiting to see how the Dragonball movie adaptation did before considering going the same route. Who knows what’ll happen with that at this point.
If anything, the fact that it had the attendance and figures it did on name recognition alone is a good sign. We all knew it was going to suck horribly and have little no no redeeming qualities, but it still brought in millions of dollars simply because it’s a Dragonball Z movie. If you can throw something this bad together and still generate that much money from an audience of cynics, then you should be able to mimic the comic book to movie industry (albeit on a smaller scale).
“I can’t be certain that any of the recently announced American adaptations will ever reach production. ”
Astro Boy’s done. It just needs a good marketing campaign. Blood: The Last Vampire’s release depends on whether or not Hollywood’s willing to take a chance on an Asian female actress in a traditional[for itself, anyway] white role. And Priest and Oldboy could happen. But everything else depends on the current credit crunch situation and whether or not the domestic anime and manga industry will still be around long enough for more synergy between the studios and distributors. [Assuming the studios want synergy, and don’t just screw over the English licensor when they go to Japan, like FOX did with Viz.]
box: Naruto and DB are owned by the same company. I imagine Shueisha will demand more creative control before letting any future titles be adapted.