Neon Genesis Evangelion (live-action movie)

There is another anime live action that I want you to be aware of. It is better unlike the live action of Haruhi Suzumiya no yuuutsu that I post earlier. This is the live action of the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. For more info read the article below the trailer.

Development of a live action movie version of Neon Genesis Evangelion was announced in May 2003 by the Houston-based anime distributor ADV Films, who hold world-wide rights to the series outside of Asia and Australia. The film will be made by ADV, Gainax and Weta Workshop Ltd.. Its release is currently projected to occur at any time ranging from as early as 2008 to as late as 2015; in March 2005, Matt Greenfield was reported to have indicated that the movie would be finished in "at least a year, most likely 3 or 4." Hideaki Anno, the director of Evangelion, will not be directing this live-action movie, though at the beginning it was suggested that he would have some sort of supervisory role.

As of August 2005, production of the movie is on hold as a director has yet to become available. In December 2005, Fortune Magazine reported in an article about ADV Films, that ADV has raised "about half of the $100 million to $120 million" needed to produce the Neon Genesis Evangelion live-action movie. It's not completely clear if this money was raised by ADV alone, or portions of that amount was contributed by Gainax.

ADV stated that fans could expect a major announcement concerning the film to be made sometime in the Autumn of 2006. As of January 2008, there has been no such announcement. Although ADV have recently said the film is "still on" and "big names" are attached, no information can be announced at this time, and the project is considered to be in "development hell."

CAST

Despite many rumors found on the internet, there is no set cast for the movie due to the fact that no director has yet been confirmed. It is unlikely that a complete cast will be confirmed more than a couple of months prior to the commencement of production, as several of the leads are supposed to be young teenagers; it's been stated by several parties that one of the goals of the production is to cast children of ages appropriate to their roles. Virtually all casting rumours floating around on the internet are completely unofficial as well as unlikely, many having been based on the "Dream Casts" of enthusiastic fans or nonsensical speculative magazine articles (such as Anime Insider Magazine's infamous list of suggestions).

Actor ethnicity

In the earliest days of disclosure, Tiffany Grant of ADV unintentionally helped to spark a small batch of controversies through interviews and self-published articles, casually citing that the film would feature a cast "mostly of European descent", as well as mentioning ADV's toying with the idea of giving the English dub actors (herself being perhaps the most well-known of these) cameos in the film. While the latter was torn into mostly by self-made ADV opponents and quickly burned itself out, the former became the subject of wide-spread and heated online debate for well over a year, in heavy-handed discussions on everything from artistic preservation of literary works to the racial politics of Hollywood. Not long after Grant's statements, tensions on the subject of race rose when concept art produced by Weta Workshop was released featuring character slug names such as "Kate Rose" (in lieu of Asuka Langley), "Ray" (Rei Ayanami), and "Susan Whitnall" (Misato Katsuragi).

In 2005, tensions on the subject of race were substantially reduced when Weta Workshop updated its official website, adding a section which featured all of its previously released Evangelion concept art labeled with the original Japanese character names as well as several references to Tokyo 3, cited as "New Tokyo". Online approval among fans seemed unanimous, though whatever weight this gesture may hold with regard to the film's final cast remains uncertain. Richard Taylor, head of Effects and Creatures at Weta Workshop and one of the project's most enthusiastic proponents, publicly expressed his belief at the 2006 Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Brisbane that the film should have a predominantly Asian cast in order to work effectively in the international market.