Untitled Evangelion Project

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This article or section contains information about one or more scheduled or expected films. The content may change as the film's release approaches and more information becomes available.

This article is about a proposed live action movie project. For an upcomming animated movie project see Rebuild of Evangelion (2007-2008)

Untitled Evangelion Project aka "Evangelion Live Action Movie" (ELAM) or "Live Action Evangelion Movie" (LAEM)
Directed by	TBA
Produced by	TBA
Written by	Hideaki Anno (creator), Matt Greenfield (screenplay)
Distributed by	ADV Films
IMDb profile

Pre-production of a live action version of Neon Genesis Evangelion was announced in May 2003 by the Houston-based anime distributor ADV Films (who holds world-wide rights to the series outside of Asia and Australia), and will be made by ADV, Gainax and Weta Workshop Ltd.. Dubbed the Evangelion Live Action Movie ("ELAM" for short) by fans (and Live Action Evangelion Movie aka "LAEM" in some circles), it is estimated to be released from as early as 2008 to as late as 2015; Matt Greenfield was reported to have indicated, on March 2005, that the movie would be finished in "at least a year, most likely 3 or 4." [1] 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 recently stated that fans can expect a major announcement concerning the film to be made sometime in the Autumn of 2006. As of December 2006, there has been no such announcement.

Contents 1 Cast 1.1 Racial disagreements 2 Production 3 Story 3.1 A-6 Treatment 3.2 Angels 3.3 Asuka 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] 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, and advance confirmation may be risky considering the physical development of the average 14-year-old.

For a time, reports floated about claiming that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe would play Shinji Ikari, and American pop star Lindsay Lohan would portray Asuka Langley. These rumors were proven false. It's since been noted that 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).

[edit] Racial disagreements

In the earliest days of disclosure, Tiffany Grant of ADV helped to spark a small batch of controversies through interviews and self-published articles, casually citing the near-certainty of the film having a mostly White cast, as well as mentioning ADV's toying with the idea of giving the English dub actors (herself being perhaps the most well-known) 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, fuel was added to the fire 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 to feature the concept images labeled with the original Japanese character names as well as numerous references to New Tokyo. Online approval was gauged as near-unanimous among fans, 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 seemingly the project's most enthusiastic proponent, 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.

[edit] Production

With all of its dependency on hearsay, and the resulting tendency for fluctuation, what can be said about the project with confidence (or just good faith) rests almost entirely on whatever has been publicly stated last by an official party.

The following statements were made on April 2, 2006 at Tekkoshocon panel featuring Matt Greenfield and wife Tiffany Grant (Point summaries courtesy of EvaMonkey.com):

• Matt Greenfield says that Weta approached ADV about approaching Gainax to do a live action Eva movie.
• Three "A List" directors that are also fans of Evangelion approached ADV about the project, not the other way around.
• Greenfield talks about getting their pitch package together and that "the first thing is Robin Williams talking about Evangelion", who is apparently a big Evangelion fan, and the appearance of the Mass Production Eva toy in One Hour Photo is entirely his doing.
• Celebrities have been inquiring directly to ADV about being involved in Live Action Evangelion.
• The director to be signed will most likely be the first to have room in their schedule.
• Greenfield acknowledges the uncertainty of the final product due to the nature of film making being driven by the director.
• The slug script was written by a well known writer who has written several well known sci-fi movies. The slug script will be re-written to fit the tastes and vision of the director selected.
• Greenfield acknowledges that the children will most likely be age appropriate. The kids will be picked and then the adults will be cast to work well with the children.
• Tiffany Grant asserts that Weta gets 20 times more email about Evangelion than The Lord of the Rings.
• Greenfield says a director will most likely be signed by the end of the year.
• Greenfield says they don't want to make it for profit, but because they want to do it, and they want to do it right, and do it justice in the same way that Lord of the Rings did.
• Weta Workshop customer service manager Darren Reddiex stated "Currently this project hasn't been greenlit. We ourselves are very hopeful the project will go ahead as, given the opportunity, we'd love to continue working on it ourselves." when responding to a fan's email.

Click here to see the video.

In addition, ADV recently stated that fans can expect a major announcement concerning the film to be made sometime in the Fall of 2006.

[edit] Story

[edit] A-6 Treatment

No official storyline has been announced; some sources indicate that it could be based on the first few episodes of the TV series. Fan speculation on this likelihood gradually gave rise to a wide expectation that the movie will be a liberal adaptation of the first six episodes, which has come to be known as the "A-6 Treatment". Allowing for some divergence from the original storyline, A-6 theory holds that the film will likely focus on Shinji's arrival in New Tokyo and the set of difficult transitions awaiting him there, as well as establish and emphasize character relationships between Shinji, Misato, and possibly Rei. The A-6 Treatment theory finds itself in a place that presents probably the most domestic, character-driven approach to introducing the world of Evangelion; if the movie is successful, sequels would follow the official storyline of the show and take on an orientation more suited to emphasize action and plot. In 2005, the idea of an Evangelion trilogy was touted as being a near-certainty by Matt Greenfield, although he referenced only his own desire for such as well as the anonymous desires of everyone thus far involved.

[edit] Angels

Out of all released re-conceptualizations, only two Angels are explored, the first being the flying geometric monolith Ramiel from TV episodes 5 & 6, and the second being Evangelion-possessing fungus Bardiel from episode 18, suggesting that the film would encapsulate a broad chunk of the original story, if not its entirety. However, in light of the producers' revealed desire for a trilogy, coupled with the fact that the Weta concept art was released several years ago, the artwork may no longer be the best indicator of what will be included in the first film.

[edit] Asuka

Similar arguments to the one revolving around Bardiel have sprung up on internet forums in response the prevalent depictions of Asuka's EVA-02, which did not originally appear in the series until episode 8, well after the theoretical A-6 story arc would conceivably conclude itself.

When asked by a fan if we would see Asuka "kick ass" in the film, Matt Greenfield replied simply, "No." It is unknown whether this relates to the A-6 theory or the Americanization controversy.

[edit] See also

• Rebuild of Evangelion

[edit] External links

• eva.trivialbeing.net — Fan site collecting data on the live movie.
• The project page for the movie on Weta Workshop's website (only conceptual art is shown so far).