Forum - View topicHow would you make a live-action movie based on a anime?
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The Overlord
Posts: 88 |
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Here's a fun idea, let's say a major movie studio hired you make a live action movie based on a anime. You have a 100 million dollar budget, control over the script and casting and the studio can get the rights to any anime.
Your fee for directing is very small, but you get 10% of the gross revenue, so its in your interest to make the movie successful. So what would you do? |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7360 |
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I'd personally try to evoke the feelings that I got while watching the original series itself and keep true to the personalities of the characters from the show. I wouldn't necessarily tie myself down to the original story unless I had to though. And I'd try to get actors who look close to their anime counterparts. Then hire the guys who used to do Toonami and early adult swim bumps to make the trailers. And try to get some of the original writers on board with the project. And the original composer if I can. And hire whoever did CGI for Transformers 2 to do any CGI effects.
In simpler terms, I'd do the exact opposite of what M. Night did to Avatar: The Last Airbender. |
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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I had ideas that, fifteen years ago, COULD have fixed the problems with that Sailor Moon movie Geena Davis wanted to do, but, err....she never asked me.
("Drop Sailor Venus because nobody knows her?"--Pshaw: I could see her not only worked into a variation on her first-season origin and still pay tribute to the distinctive "froot-loop" version of later series...) Followed that with a few unique ideas for moving Ranma 1/2 stateside (Akane as an independent Japanese-American, Ranma as standard chauvinistic Tokyo shounen, and Kunou as a wannabe who's clearly overdosed on his Kurosawa-movie stereotypes?), but after the Dragonball thing, it's clear nobody's going to ask me about THAT one, either. 
Last edited by EricJ on Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Agito∞
 Posts: 24 Location: Vegas |
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Make a Mobile Suit Gundam film. Have Shia LeBouf with his hair as he had as a teenager again and there you go, Amuro Ray!
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The Overlord
Posts: 88 |
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I think with something like this, picking the right property is key.
I always thought the character designs for anime characters made it hard to cast them in real life and I think certain properties would be tricky to do in live action in general, part of the reason why Dragon Ball Evolution turned out the way it did. You also need something with mass appeal, something that only appeals to otakus like Lucky Star wouldn't work. So that leaves you with only a few options left, so I would pick movies based off Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist. There you have two properties where where you can cast some famous Hollywood faces and not be controversial. Also it seems like the special effects budget wouldn't go out of control with those movies and I think they have the most appeal to a general audience in the US. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7995 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Well, first of all, unlike the majority of anime picked for live action, I'd use common sense and pick things that were easily adaptable. Something that's more down to Earth or at least doesn't require heavy use computer graphics, CGed characters/animal-things/mecha, etc. in order to increase believability and credibility. Prime examples would be Monster, Haibane Renmei, Kurenai, Welcome to the NHK, or Rumbling Hearts to name a few. Once you get good at the simple stuff, only then can you tackle the more advanced.
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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I'd flee to a country which doesn't have extradition laws, suitcase full of cash in tow. Trying to create a live-action anime movie is about as difficult as trying to revive Pauly Shore's career. Sure, there may be that one chance it'll be successful, but chances are, it'll fail. There are three reasons for this: 1) $100M isn't shit to produce a really, really good anime series to live-action when a good chunk of this is probably going to go towards a screen writer worth a damn, a director who can... direct, and 3 (minimum) actors/actresses which people know. 2) Converting big-eyed girls to realism is ... insultingly stupid. Half the reason why anime is popular is due to the character designs and modifying this "cuteness" for a hot actress won't fly. Ever. 3) Marketing a film is going to take some serious Rupees and quite easily will take up the rest of that $100M. What's left to work with? Back in the day, movie studios duped audiences with bullshit previews and ads to draw them in in order to capitalize on the "First Week Payola" because that's about how long it takes before word of mouth starts killing revenues for bad movies. However, with Twitter, this can be done in minutes, rather than days, and keeping Twitter fans happy in their seats is going to be very difficult without something shiny to distract them. Call me cynical, but I highly doubt a successful anime in 2D will ever fly well enough in the 3D (with or without 3D) world without some non-anime help (such as aging actors or stupid gimmick such as a sponsorship from GM using a "green" logo where people can buy "Bumblebee"). |
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TatsuGero23
 Posts: 1277 Location: Sniper Island, USA (It's in your heart!) |
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Honestly I would approach it the same why the first Blade movie was approached in terms of selecting a series. The Blade movies never leave the impression of "this is a superhero movie" like other Marvel movies even though technically it is. Although a marvel superhero, he's relatively obsecure to a mainstream audience and off the radar of most comic book fans. In fact, Blade was partically rewritten with only the overall premise of the character remaining.
With that mindset I would look for a relatively obsecure series where I wouldn't have to worry about being "faithful to the source material or storyline" and instead focus on the appeal of the series instead. If its an action series then I focus on the action; if a mecha then I want to show off the mecha. Nor would I rely on nostaglia or familiarity with the series. So big series, movies and older classic series that are familiar in the US are an auto out. There's just too much expectation as a barrier to overcome. |
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RHachicho
 Posts: 897 Location: Essex, UK |
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Sorry to say I agree with PJ here. The very idea of a good live action Anime is preposterous in and of itself. Animators will casually make things intregal that would cost millions to transfer to a live action format. What's more as was said alot of Anime's charm is in it's art styles there would be no way to preserve that.
I sorta know where you are coming from. It would kick ass to see something like a DBZ movie with uber cg and ultra realistic moves and everything. But there is probably no way to make it and make money. If it is ever made it will be bye some billionaire Anime fan in his dotage. Even if it sells like hotcakes it will still not make much money. In the end we are just going to have to cope with Anime as Anime and Live action as Live action. |
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Beltane70
 Posts: 4021 |
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If the budget wasn't a question, Cobra could possibly work as a live-action film. For the most part, Cobra uses a pretty realistic art style for the character designs. The only thing that you'd need CG for would be the space scenes and possibly some of the futuristic city-scapes.
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EricJ
Posts: 876 |
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That said, I actually liked the two Death Note movies. (Although not as much the third one, where the L actor just self-indulgently quirked out to the point of annoyance.) It wasn't the Japanese studios' fault that they never have US budgets. And over here, I even cut the Dragonball movie some slack for at least trying to get back on track in the second half, even though they'd already gotten off on the wrong foot in the first half. The fact that with all the ingredients in place they could have made a good movie if they'd just quit panicking over their US-acceptance fears and tried to, is a continual source of hope. |
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