Archive for August, 2008
The Latino Review movie website reports that Max Mokowski is set to direct the upcoming live-action adaptation of Voltron series, which aired in North America from 1984 to 1985. (The Lion segment of Voltron, in turn, is an adaptation of Hiroshi Sasagawa and Toei’s Golion anime series.) Max Makowski was responsible for production of the Today Show for the Asian market. He also worked as a cameraman and writer for CNBC and NBC Asia and directed episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He is currently working on an adaptation of the Japanese movie SHINOBI and is set to direct a movie adaptation the 1970s series Kung Fu, which featured David Carradine.
Plans for a live-action adaptation for Voltron were dropped by production company New Regency this month while another company, Relativity Media, was negotiating to continue the project.
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The wraparound jacket band on the 20th volume of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist manga will confirm on Friday that a new television anime series is in the works. A new anime series was a topic of much fan discussion for several months, but it was thrust into a more public spotlight last month when a management document was purportedly leaked from the BONES anime studio. The document listed Fullmetal Alchemist animator Yasuhiro Irie as “Hagane 2 kantoku” (Iron/Fullmetal 2 director).
After the purported leak, BONES President Masahiko Minami posted an official statement that said that no file with this same formatted information existed within the company. When asked about the possibility of a sequel to Fullmetal Alchemist or Darker than BLACK (another BONES anime), Minami told ANN, “It hasn’t been decided yet. We are interested in doing them. As original science-fiction works, they were extremely fascinating. With these kinds of dramatic story lines, I feel that there’s a lot we could do potentially.”
Viz Media will publish the 17th volume of the manga version in North America this October, while FUNimation Entertainment released both the first television series and its theatrical movie finale.
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The Variety entertainment news source reports that New Regency, a production company based at Fox, no longer has plans for the live-action Voltron film project, while another company, Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media, is negotiating to pick up the project. If Relativity Media signs onto the remake of the 1980s animated robot series, it will finance and produce the film with a lower budget and the use of technologies similar to those used in Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 comic. Relativity Media produced or co-produced over fifty projects in the last three years, including Ghost Rider, The Forbidden Kingdom, and Wanted.
Variety reported in April of 2007 that New Regency was negotiating for the rights to the project from the Mark Gordon Company, which is still involved with producers Mark Gordon and Jordan Wynn. The newspaper now reports that New Regency never completed the deal and could not reach an agreement with Voltron’s Japanese rights holders. These talks began before the live-action Transformers film earned the fifth highest worldwide box office take of 2007, and before Warner Brothers began negotiating for the rights to another American adaptation of Japanese robots, Robotech.
If the Voltron project still goes forward, executive producer Bryan Zuriff and the other staffers will select a director by next week. Justin Marks (He-Man, Green Arrow) already wrote a script that resets the Lion Voltron story, which was based on the King of Beasts Golion anime, in post-apocalyptic New York City and Mexico after an alien invasion.
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School Days - Review
August 17, 2008 • School Days • Comments
Review of the series “School Days” by Douglas. Enjoy.
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The Japanese broadcaster TV Tokyo published its 2008 annual report which states that Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto manga has been published in 23 countries, while the anime version airs in over 60 countries. The overall franchise has been licensed in more than 90 countries, and the first four Naruto feature films have been seen in theaters over four million times. According to TV Tokyo, Naruto and Gintama - Samurai in Space contributed to robust sales of overseas rights in the last fiscal year which ended in March.
The report also notes that the Pokémon anime series is watched in 68 countries. This franchise has earned two trillion yen (about US$18 billion), although most of that comes from the original videogames. Last year’s feature film, Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai, earned 5.02 billion yen (US$47 million) as the top domestic movie at the Japanese box office.
Another franchise, the Yu-Gi-Oh! brand based on Kazuki Takahashi’s manga, has sold 18.1 billion cards so far. When the franchise reached 15.88 billion cards in 2006, the producers applied to have that record included in the Guinness World Records. Other titles that TV Tokyo highlighted include Sergeant Keroro (Sgt. Frog), Bleach, and Blue Dragon.
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The North American distributor Bandai Entertainment has announced at its “surprise” Otakon 2008 panel on Saturday night that it has acquired the feature-length .hack//G.U. Trilogy anime film. Cyber Connect 2 (.hack//SIGN, .hack//Legend Of The Twilight) adapted the story of the .hack//G.U. role-playing game trilogy for this newly animated feature in high definition. The project was first screened in a Tokyo theater in December of 2007, and Bandai Visual released the project on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in Japan, after an initial delay, just this past March. Bandai Entertainment and the other Namco Bandai group companies have released the earlier game and anime installments in the franchise, including the .hack//Roots prequel.
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Masao Maruyama, the co-founder of the Madhouse anime studio, revealed at his Otakon 2008 panel today that his company is still working on plans for a sequel to the Ninja Scroll action anime film. However, he noted that Ninja Scroll 2 project still needs a script that is acceptable to himself and franchise creator Yoshiaki Kawajiri.
The original movie opened in Japan in 1993, and Manga Entertainment released it in North America and other areas. Madhouse has since created a 2003 spinoff television series that Urban Vision licensed for overseas distribution. The American publisher WildStorm created its comic book take on the story in 2006.
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