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NEWS: Saint Seiya Manga's Live-Action Knights of the Zodiac Film Earns US$535,000 in U.S. Opening We

A rumor I heard somewhere (so take it with a massive grain of salt) is that a Toei bigwig got his start on Seiya and credits it for his career, so he keeps pushing the IP despite all the pushback.

A rumor I heard somewhere (so take it with a massive grain of salt) is that a Toei bigwig got his start on Seiya and credits it for his career, so he keeps pushing the IP despite all the pushback.

Ooof. For a film that supposedly wasn't even that bad, (not great, but not the Dragonball Evolution) it's turning into the 2020s equivalent of John Carter.

A rumor I heard somewhere (so take it with a massive grain of salt) is that a Toei bigwig got his start on Seiya and credits it for his career, so he keeps pushing the IP despite all the pushback. Which is somewhat understandable, but when James Cameron pushes his pet project, he made billions. Hell, even Alita became enough of a cult classic 20th Century has begun opening discussions about a sequel. But Seiya missed its window, which was ironically, the same window that turned Dragonball into a property so huge it shrugged off DB Evolution, regularly makes huge hauls with its animated films, and had a fighting game so hyped up it got the Green Bay Packers and WWE’s New Day to help promote it. When your property has a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, you’ve made it. Seiya missed that window, and while the logical route would be to pivot to something else, they keep trying with it. Eventually you need to just cut your losses and move on to another franchise.

HMMM....that is really bad right? Since I am pretty sure Dragon Ball Evolution, another horribly-received live action adaptation got higher box office than this, not to mention inflation.

Who greenlit this project? Does the producers really believe such half-assed effort can make Saint Seiya a main stream hit in the west? (To be fair, Saint seiya franchise is huge in the Latin region so cultural barrier is no excuse) Or is the whole thing a money-laundering scheme? People claim the latest Fast and Furious would be THE flop of the year, but I do believe this one takes the cake.

Surprisingly DBE made a profit. According to this at least: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Dragonball-Evolution

The Saint Seiya/Knights of the Zodiac live-action movie is a definite flop but this movie was almost certainly made with the "International" market in mind, the limited release in the United States and Canada was obviously an afterthought.

The big problem for Toei and Sony is that this movie is also flopping in the markets where Saint Seiya is an established, beloved brand.

The project started in 2015, the final script was ready before the 2020 pandemic [but the production got pushed back until 2021].

Guraad was 1st created for the live-action as Kido’s business partner. They added the character to the netflix CGI animation released in 2019. After the poor reception of the character, they decided to change Guraad as Kido’s wife, with Famke Janssen joining the cast of the LA

The movie is entirely funded by Toei Animation, without investment from Sony (they only distribute the movie), so its considered an independent film. Toei couldn’t make 100M USD movie alone. They lost investment from a Chinese company before pandemic so the budget decreased more

They consulted the author Masami Kurumada several times & he gave several suggestions on the production & design of the armor.

They knew the box office won’t be a huge success, as they produced the movie with a very limited budget. The intention of the movie was to introduce the name of the franchise in a live-action movie to the world. They don’t necessarily need financial return to make a sequel

There were many noises in the social media saying that the box office of the movie is a disaster, but for them, the $5M USD from latin America is considered okay. They knew they were going to compete with Super Mario & GoTG, so they just went with it and see how things will go

Toei Animation & Masami Kurumada liked the movie, they want to continue this project. The main producer of the franchise, Yoshi Ikezawa once commented, “The hardest part is now. What comes next will be bigger & better, the pride & the will is there.”

The last big live-action adaptation mega bomb with franchise aspirations should be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I from 2017. Even live-action AoT saw success with the dreadful first film before reality had to be faced and Death Note by Netflix was widely seen and only reactions killed the sequels. It might be the "only" Death Note in the lives of casual foreign audiences. Haha. A watchable 90s horror throwback if you ask me but the lack of a sequel rips it apart in the end. US GitS is unwatchable but it tells a complete story. One of its few good points.

Also, DBE had Dragonball in the title so people knew what they were getting. Calling this Knights of the Zodiac wasn't the wisest choice,