Ask John: Why Has Japan Never Made a Live Action Dragon Ball Movie?

Question:
Why no Dragonball (Z) live action? Last rumor I heard was that it was going to be with an American cast with Brendan Fraser as the lead. Crazy, huh? I’m just wondering why no Japanese studios have taken the leap to create Dragonball or DBZ live action. I’ve seen examples of Japanese movies using CGI and effects right, and I think that it could be pulled off spectacularly, maybe even extending the popularity of the anime/manga a bit.

Answer:
I’m no movie studio executive, so I can’t make confident analysis, but as an experience movie fan and critic, I think I can make some accurate guesses. Likewise, I can’t say for certain why Japan’s movie industry has never produced a live action Dragon Ball movie, but I think I can hazard some plausible theories.

In 2002, Twentieth Century Fox announced its acquisition of rights to produce an American live action film based on Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball franchise. The American fan community was both aghast and excited, but five years have passed and the film project has yet to significantly advance. There are, I think, a number of possible reasons for the delay. Any of these could be the blame, or a combination. Or the delay may be caused by something I can’t imagine. So take my explanations as the unsubstantiated theories that they are. Fox acquired the rights to the Dragon Ball franchise in 2002 when the anime industry was growing exponentially in America. However, the American anime industry shortly later contracted considerably. Similarly, in 2002 and 2003 the Hollywood studio system took in record amounts, but box office receipts plummeted in 2004 and 2005 and are only now beginning to recover. So Fox may have secured Dragon Ball production rights in 2002 when the outlook for anime and Hollywood were bright, just to prevent the franchise from falling into the hands of a competing studio. But as the market for anime shrunk, the Dragon Ball franchise in America got older, and Hollywood’s eagerness to invest in untested franchises shrank in response to diminishing grosses, the chances of a live action Dragon Ball movie actually getting produced diminished.

Furthermore, a Dragon Ball movie may be a greater risk to produce than anime fans realize. Dragon Ball may have a massive following among American fans, but there are probably only thousands of American Dragon Ball fans, not millions. Dragon Ball is also an unfamiliar franchise. Fans may be familiar with it, but for average Americans, Dragon Ball isn’t nearly as familiar as home grown American super hero stories like Superman, Batman, and Spiderman. That unfamiliarity may make studio executives and investors hesitant to invest their millions. Finally, a live action Dragon Ball movie will be expensive to produce. Inevitably it’ll require a lot of time-consuming CG effects, and while CG isn’t innately expensive, paying CG artists for hundreds of hours of work is expensive. Ultimately, Fox may have determined that actually producing a live action Dragon Ball movie may be more risky than its potential success may earn. After all, how many successful children’s martial arts films have there been in America? Anyone remember Ronny Yu’s Warriors of Virtue?

The absence of a Japanese produced live action picture may have different causes. If creator Akira Toriyama hasn’t been extensively involved in the Dragon Ball video games or the Dragon Ball GT anime series, he may also be uninterested in involving himself in a live action Dragon Ball picture. Furthermore, I see no sign that Japanese audiences are interested in live action films in the vein of a live action Dragon Ball. Japanese live action children’s and family films seem to fall into one of two categories. They’re either “tokusatsu” (special effects) films like the Godzilla and Gamera franchises or countless “power ranger” style hero movies, or they’re fairly realistic character development and relationship dramas. Vintage franchises including Dororo and Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro have been adapted into Japanese live action pictures, but one could argue that these films are as much targeted at nostalgic adults as at children. There are countless Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and “Ranger” hero team motion pictures, but there are no live action film adaptations of Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, or other shonen adventure manga, despite the fact that modern visual effects technology make these films possible. The only plausible explanation for the absence of such films is the fact that Japanese audiences just prefer their manga heroes in manga and anime form, not as live action movie heroes.