Screen Rant » dragonball

2009 Scream Award Nominations

Ross Miller — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:37:08 +0000

The nominees have been announced for the fourth annual Scream Awards, held every year by Spike TV. The decisively more “fan-friendly” award ceremony (compared to the Oscars) honors films from the sci-fi, fantasy, horror and comic-book genres of movies, TV shows and comic books. The awards are described as, “the first and only global event of its kind,” to honor those genres.

The Scream 2009 nominees were chosen by the Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders, a list which this year includes the likes of Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth and Zack Snyder, plus many more. The event will be taped on Saturday, October 17th this year at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and will air on Spike TV ten days later on Tuesday, October 27th (check for local times).

Along with ...

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Growing Up On ‘Dragonball’

Kofi Outlaw — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:49:31 +0000

Before Dragonball was a movie, it was a Japanese manga comic book created by Akira Toriyama, which later became an anime cartoon series. I was too young to read the manga in the 80′s but I first became aware of the anime around 1989, when a Dragonball Tv movie premiered on my local TV station.

My brother and I instantly shoved a tape in our VCR, trying to preserve this new awesomeness we were seeing. As fate would have it, that tape ran out just before the climatic final battle at a Martial Arts Tournament, and Dragonball was lost to us until the series’ next installment, Dragon Ball Z, premiered on American TV in the late 90s. Fate had given me a second chance and I snatched it up.

Most of my college years (1999-2003) involved hard-partying peppered with ...

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: April 12, 2009

Niall Browne — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:57:39 +0000

This week:

Miley is smiley over the box office; Gyllenhaal joins Thompson and Fiennes in Nanny McPhee; Terrance Howard may not be in Iron Man 2 – but he will star with Method Man and Gooding Jr in George Lucas’ Red Tails; Jennifer Garner likes Butter and we discover Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth.

Box Office

Well if you thought that Fast and Furious’ $70+ million gross was impressive last week then you’ll be amazed that the Hannah Montana The Movie with Miley Cyrus banked $34 million over the weekend. That’s enough to mend Billy Ray’s Achy Breaky Heart.

Fast & Furious sped past the magic $100 million mark with a weekend total of $28 million. Down an okay 59% after its mega opening the Vin Diesel/ Paul Walker pic has now made off with $118 million.

Monster Vs. Aliens brought its total up to $144 million after making another ...

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Dragonball: Evolution Review

Ross Miller — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:20:09 +0000

Short version: Dragonball: Evolution is a badly written film with horrible dialogue, lackluster action and a sense of fun that’s nowhere to be found.

Screen Rant’s Ross Miller reviews Dragonball: Evolution

When you head to the theater to see a movie called Dragonball: Evolution, you obviously aren’t expecting Shakespeare. From the advertising, the whole thing gives off a feeling of light, campy, action-packed fun that you would hope would allow you to just sit back, relax and turn off your brain for 90 minutes or so.

Yeah, well, that’s why we have words like “hope” as a counterpoint to “guarantee.”

Dragonball: Evolution may very well be one of the worst films of the past 12 months or so – I am actually struggling to think of the last movie I thought was quite as bad as this one was. And it’s not ...

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Cast & Crew of ‘Dragonball’ Explain Differences Between Cartoon and Movie

Ross Miller — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:12:51 +0000

[NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS 100% SPOILER-FREE]

No matter the source material – be it a novel, comic book, graphic novel, TV show or cartoon – there is always going to be some complaints about the movie adaptation. Even if the changes are critical to making the adapted story work on-screen, fans of the source material get up in arms about simple, unimportant things like changed hair colors or age differences.

One such movie catching that flack right now is Dragonball, which is based on the ultra-popular anime series. In an interview with MTV News, the cast and crew of Dragonball have gone out of their way to try and justify any changes they may have been made from the original cartoon to the movie.

James Marsters (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), who plays Lord Piccolo in Dragonball, is a huge ...

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Dragonball Sequel Already Has A Script

Ross Miller — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:35:50 +0000

The release of Dragonball hasn’t even come along yet (we’re still a few days away), and yet there’s already a script written for the inevitable sequel! According to star Justin Chatwin (who plays Goku in the film), it’s not just some ideas wrote down on some pieces of paper, but an actual completed script that has been written, although I doubt it will be the final version.

Here’s what Chatwin told MTV:

“I know they’ve written a second one and it’s pretty far out there. The second one really goes to some different places that I’ve never seen in any comic book adaptation”

MTV goes on to say that: “Chatwin admits that he hasn’t read the sequel script firsthand, but that he’s been told a lot about it and that he and co-star Emmy Rossum (Bulma) would jump at the ...

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3 More Disappointing ‘Dragonball’ Clips

Carl Lee — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:37:06 +0000

With the U.S. release of Dragonball approaching, MTV Splash Page has exclusives that will make die-hard fans cringe. Hints of how adaptation was handled are here, it doesn’t look good.

Already released in various places around the globe, the marketing team keeps peddling this movie despite the negative press. The last time we checked, we had 5 character-centric TV spots and a name change but this time we get a little closer with actual scenes. Full of cheesy dialog, terrible acting and bad fight scenes, the three clips are excruciating to watch. You have been warned.

Goku and Chi Chi don’t meet at the World Martial Arts Tournament, but at high school. Awesome.

Sans-Turtleshell Roshi explains details to Goku and Bulma. Great.

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Five New Character-Centric TV Spots For ‘Dragonball’

Ross Miller — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:15:48 +0000

The footage we’ve seen of the cartoon-to-movie adaptation known as Dragonball (they dropped the “Evolution” part, in case you’re wondering) has been less than satisfactory to say the least. No one is expecting Shakespeare from this thing, but by the looks of a couple of the trailers, it almost seems like a joke or spoof of some kind.

I will admit that some of the action sequences haven’t looked completely terrible, but every time we hear a piece of dialogue a cringing feeling is induced. It seems like the people behind this adaptation have gotten it all wrong: they’ve apparently changed certain aspects which have, and will continue to, cause fans of the original cartoon to get extremely annoyed, but at the same time the changes they’ve made don’t seem to be in the best interest of ...

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New Dragonball Movie Footage Leads To Slight Optimism

Sabrina Cognata — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:38:01 +0000

There’s all sorts of news buzzing about Dragonball Evolution. First, there’s the release of clips of the dragon that appears to be Shenron. Although there is no indication in the clip that the dragon is in fact Shenron, if you followed the cartoon Shenron was the dragon that was summoned once all the dragonballs were collected on Earth and can grant one wish to the summoner.

Until I saw these clips of from the movie I was pretty sure it was going to look like something a bored high school student did for their art school application project. It goes without saying that all the footage released until now left me anticipating something worse than the love child of Speed Racer and The Goonies sequel.

To see the dragon clip, head over to io9.com.

In addition, the French trailer for the film ...

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New ‘Dragonball Evolution’ Trailer Worse Than The Last One

Rob Keyes — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:47:35 +0000

Back in October, I wrote a little piece on the leaked trailer for Dragonball (now re-named Dragonball Evolution) and in it I basically talked about how terrible the teaser looked. I was clearly not the only one who thought this and after 91 comments and some feuding, Screen Rant Master Vic had to shut down the thread to simmer things down.

In defense of the movie (at that time), that trailer was very early and not complete in terms of post-production. Today however, we have the first official trailer for the upcoming live-action adaptation of the hit Manga series and it still sucks… maybe even more than the first teaser.

From this trailer, the characters and costumes look ridiculous (especially the secondary characters), the fight choreography looks awful and the ...

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First Dragonball Trailer = Fail

Rob Keyes — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:03:21 +0000

Fail.

That’s the quintessential word of choice describing what I think about this trailer, and even the movie for that matter. Today we get our first look at what the Dragonball movie is shaping up to be, with the release of the first teaser trailer.

The trailer does nothing right for me. I actually think it looks awful and terribly cheap. With that in mind, I do have to admit that I am not a fan of the anime cartoon shows so I guess I could be biased.

I know it’s just an early teaser trailer and that it may be kind of unfair to judge a movie based on that. However, a trailer does share with us a lot of information such as how its filmed, the style and tone, what ...

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New Dragonball Photos Here, Trailer On The Way

Kofi Outlaw — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:08:37 +0000

Coming Soon is reporting that 20th Century Fox (boo, leave Watchmen alone!) will be releasing the first trailer for Dragonball before Max Payne, which hits theaters on October 17, (and looks pretty good judging by its trailer!)

While you wait for October 17 to roll around and deliver the first real impression of whether or not Dragonball will flop, take a look at the new pics which have hit the Web, and let us know your first impressions.

Goku (Justin Chatwin) holds the Dragonball.

Chi Chi (Jamie Chung) gets ready for the fight.

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Keanu Reeves To Star In Cowboy Bebop

Kofi Outlaw — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:17:24 +0000

First Showing is reporting that Keanu “Whoah” Reeves is adding another straight-faced hero to his resume, playing intergalactic bounty hunter Spike Spiegel in the live-action adaption of anime cult-favorite, Cowboy Bebop.

According to First Showing’s “inside source” at Fox studios, Cowboy Bebop has long been buried in the list of movies waiting to be green lit, with Reeves attached to the project for some time now. That bit of star-power, plus some early fan buzz, has motivated Fox to fast-track Cowboy Bebop for a 2010 release; though currently there is no director, writer, or script for the film.

For those who aren’t into anime, Cowboy Bebop follows the exploits of a team of bounty hunters, (“Cowboys” as their known,) who coast ...

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New Promo Image From Dragonball Movie

Kofi Outlaw — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:58:06 +0000

Here’s a new promo image from the live-action Dragonball movie. The new picture features Goku (Justin Chatwin) looking real chummy with best friend Bulma (Emmy Rossum). It’s an all right picture, but the hairstyles and that “ironic” t-shirt Chatwin is wearing worry me. It makes it look like the film is trying too hard to imitate the series’ oscillation between kick-ass action, EXTREMELY cheesy humor, and long, still frames of characters posing, growling and looking like they might eventually do something cool. Not a big draw for the general public.

Take a look at this new Dragonball image for yourself and tell me if you don’t get that same vibe.

Dragonball is slated for an April 10, 2009 release. It’s being directed by James Wong.

Source: Hoy Cinema (Head on over for a MUCH larger ...

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Official Dragonball Teaser Poster

Kofi Outlaw — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:56:30 +0000

The first teaser poster for the live-action adaptation of anime action/soap-opera Dragonball has been released… in Japan, anyway. Still, the poster shows star Justin Chatwin looking quite the part of Saiyan martial-arts master Goku, holding what appears to be one of the mystical dragonballs in hand.

Yawn.

No, really… YAWN. The only work this poster seems to do is let a less-than-interested general public know that “hey, we’re making Dragonball live-action now!” which I’m sure is causing all kinds of mania across the pond in Japan, but here in the USA, where Dragonball fans are still considered a minority group, the marketing team behind DB is going to need to come up with some pretty action-packed, intense, get-you-sweating-down-you-back images that will get people interested in seeing a good kung-fu flick. Leave the rest of the aliens abound/super Saiyin hairstyle/laster beam shooting/mystical dragon summoning aspects of the film for when ...

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Wanna See A Dragonball Z Picture?

Vic Holtreman — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:50:33 +0000

You can check out a picture of Justin Chatwin as Goku from the upcoming Dragonball Z movie below.

I haven’t talked about this one much because frankly I was just never into the cartoon, but from what I’ve seen so far it looks like they’re really trying to capture the look of the characters (lots and lots of hair gel required, no doubt).

The movie is being directed by James Wong, and that’s about all I know about it.

I guess it’ll have lots of martial arts action in it, and it’ll be interesting to see if Wong tries to emulate the anime style of cinematography in a live action film. Of course we’ve seen how that might go over in Speed Racer‘s box office numbers…

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