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Trivia / Dragonball Evolution

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  • Ashcan Copy: Fox had sat on the rights to a Dragon Ball movie for seven years, unable to put a creative team together. As the 2008 Writer's Strike loomed on the horizon, they cobbled together a script and a modest budget, hoping to make the most of what they could with the time they had. Filming was so cheap they ended up filming in an abandoned blue jeans factory in Durango, Mexico.
    James Marsters: Yeah, they told me it was a $120 million picture and that Stephen Chow was producing. So I get to Durango and it's a $30 million picture and Stephen Chow was just on paper to fool us into getting down to Durango. Chow Yun-fat and I were cursing in the desert over this like, "SON OF A BITCH!"
  • Box Office Bomb: Budget: $30 million. Box office: $9,362,785 (domestic), $57,497,699 (worldwide). Being panned by critics and especially fans over being almost as far removed from the source material as humanly possible, along with being released in April with poor marketing, severely damaged its box office numbers.
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: The Hollywood Reporter's review opened with the following informed line.
    "Another Japanese manga bites the dust with its cinematic adaptation: in this case, the 'Dragonball Evolution' series."
  • Creator Backlash:
    • James Marsters admitted that he believed the final product wasn't very good.
    • Likewise, Emmy Rossum also went on record bashing the film, saying that it's even worse when watching it stoned and that her only saving graces during production were meeting Justin Chatwin and buying and watching the full series of Nip/Tuck on DVD.
    • Writer Ben Ramsey went as far as formally apologizing for the film, calling it a very painful creative point in his life.
    • When Akira Toriyama passed away in 2024, Justin Chatwin posted a brief tribute on his Instagram that ended with "Sorry we messed up that adaptation so badly".
  • Creator Killer: After the poor reception of this film, James Wong hasn't directed a single film since and has been relegated to producing television shows instead.
  • Creator's Apathy: Writer Ben Ramsey admitted in a 2016 apology letter to have gone into the film "as a businessman" and "not a fan" of Dragon Ball; whether this means he was a fan and just didn't care or he was not a fan at all isn't entirely clear.
  • Dawson Casting: Joon Park (Yamcha) is older than Emmy Rossum (Bulma) by 17 years.
  • Disowned Adaptation:
    • Akira Toriyama first showed what could be read as professionally polite disappointment over the film, stating that it should be taken as an "Alternate Universe" Dragon Ball. However, after the film was released and by the time of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, he had since clarified his stance: despite offering advice to the crew on how to adapt the series, they never listened to him, and thus the finished product was a disaster and something he couldn't call Dragon Ball at all. Ironically enough, the film that Dragon Ball fans love to hate was ultimately responsible for getting Akira Toriyama, a notoriously apathetic creator, to actually care about the franchise he started. Had he not been so leery of other people's treatment of his work after Evolution, he might never have taken charge of Battle of Gods after seeing the initial Darker and Edgier script treatment, and neither Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' nor Dragon Ball Super would ever have existed.
    • The English voice actors for the Dragon Ball anime series have also publicly denounced the film, accusing the filmmakers of having no knowledge of the source material whatsoever. Most notably, Christopher Sabat and Sean Schemmel spent almost three minutes poking fun at the movie at a convention, to the amusement of fans. Chris Rager (voice of Mr. Satan) also said the film felt like it gave him "ass rabies".
    • Despite returning to voice Piccolo for the Latin American Spanish dub of Evolution, Carlos Segundo was unimpressed with how his character was handled.
    • Wendel Bezerra, the Brazilian voice of Goku, said that when he watched the movie in his duties as dubbing director, his disappointment was as high as that of the fans.
    • A film so bad that Justin Chatwin apologized for it.
  • Executive Meddling: Many of the changes were presumably added in due to Fox's meddling, especially considering their track record in other films. We'll never know how much was dictated to be there, and how much the writers came up with themselves though. One of the particularly nasty changes they wanted? To make Piccolo a handsome human man. James Marsters would not have this and demanded he'd be like the original.
  • Friendship on the Set: According to Emmy Rossum, her and Justin Chatwin developed a friendship Like Brother and Sister on set.
  • Genre-Killer: While Speed Racer the year before wasn't very successful, this is the film that everyone pinpoints as the reason why Western adaptations of anime and manga are generally expected to fail at the box office nowadays (So much so that many were shocked when Alita: Battle Angel not only became a modest box office hit, but also a critical success with the audience).
  • Money, Dear Boy: Ben Ramsey admitted as much and apologized to fans when reached by an interviewer. "So I’m not blaming anyone for Dragonball but myself," he said. "As a fanboy of other series, I know what it’s like to have something you love and anticipate be so disappointing."
  • Promoted Fanboy: Producer Stephen Chow is a big fan of Dragon Ball, and signed on to the film immediately. He was deeply interested in being the director, but decided to just serve as producer because he believed in directing only his own original stories.
  • Real-Life Relative: Carla Castañeda, the daughter of Goku's Latin American VA Mario Castañeda, provided the voice for Bulma in Evolution's Latin American Spanish dub.
  • Recursive Import: Believe it or not, the film received a Japanese release. Notable things about it include Aya Hirano, one of the dub voice actors, would later join the cast of the actual anime as the Kai voice of Dende and is the first time in a Japanese production where a male actor would voice Goku.
  • Role Reprise:
    • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Mario Castañeda and Carlos Segundo reprise their respective roles as Goku and Piccolo.
    • The Brazilian Portuguese dub brings back just about everyone aside from Master Roshi, Mai and Grandpa Gohan.
  • Saved from Development Hell: Was reportedly stuck in this for a while. The movie was announced in 2002, the domain name "dragonballthemovie.com" had been registered by Fox back in 2003, but work didn't begin on it until 2007.
  • Short Run in Peru: Despite being an American movie, it was released in Japan a month before the United States.
  • Star-Derailing Role: This film effectively killed Justin Chatwin's film career, not just by being a disaster of a film, but because his casting was and still is one of the film's most controversial elements.
  • Stillborn Franchise: Despite its obvious Sequel Hook, its reception among fans and critics as well as its box office intake assures that no sequels will be materializing anytime soon (ironically, its failure was the impetus to resurrect the source material).
  • What Could Have Been: Ben Ramsey's original script was apparently a much more faithful adaptation of the series. But once it was out of Ramsey's hands, changes were made.
    • In an ironic twist on the whole matter, there are some sources which say that Wong added in elements that made the film more like the comic than the initial script. Which means...somehow...it could have actually been worse. The original script was found here and has alternate versions of the Namekians, Pilaf, Krillin, Puar, Suno, and Oolong, though it also adds a convoluted backstory involving an in-universe popular gaming franchise based on their real world battles with Piccolo.
    • Emmy Rossum was originally going to wear a short blue wig as Bulma, but it was ditched after a costume test as both she and the director hated how it looked. A pink wig was also said to have been tested.
    • While James Marsters was without a doubt one of the most praised things about the film, Ron Perlman was the original choice. He turned down the role because he was busy with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
    • Piccolo was originally going to look more human. James Marsters, being a fan of the series (or more accurately, becoming one while studying his character), knew this wouldn't go over well with fans, so when the director left the set one day, he had make-up applied behind his back. Thankfully, the director went with it.
    • The Oozaru was originally going to look different. Early models show the Oozaru looking more like a mix between Groot and an Orc. However, in the final product, it looked more monkey-like, like in the series.
    • George Lucas was considered to direct this film back in 2002. Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder were also offered the job.
    • When the movie started development back in 2002, there were two polls for whom fans wanted to play Goku and Vegeta (with Jet Li winning as Goku and Jackie Chan as Vegeta). That implies that the movie was originally going to adapt the Saiyan Saga.
    • When the movie began filming, it was originally titled Dragon Ball Z. It was later changed to just Dragon Ball, presumably because this film loosely adapted the Piccolo arc from the Dragon Ball era. It was finally changed to Dragonball Evolution to signify that it was different from the source material.
    • In regards to a sequel, Justin Chatwin was actually very enthusiastic in the plans for it would be far more faithful to the source material, even stating "Goku only really gets interesting in the second movie". As it would adapt the Saiyan Saga, it namely featured Goku and Chi-Chi getting married years later and having Gohan, Krillin being introduced as a new friend to Goku and Co. from the Tenkaichi Temple, and Vegeta and Nappa being the main villains when legend of the Dragon Balls reached out into deep space and they came to Earth in search of them. Piccolo would also return as an antihero, supposedly "purified" of his wickedness by the Kamehameha and would become an unlikely ally, something James Marsters was eager to see fulfilled.
    • For a while it was rumored that Christopher Sabat would reprise his role as Shenron the Eternal Dragon when he appears in the film's climax, but in the end the dragon remains mute.

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