Do you remember ‘Dragonball Evolution’? If the answer is yes, I think the most appropriate thing to do is to say “I’m very sorry” but, if not, it should be remembered that it was an adaptation “that way” of Akira Toriyama’s eternal manga directed by James Wong —’Final Destination’—, and which will always be remembered as one of the most horrifying films of the 2000s.
lost illusion
In the production, James Marsters, the interpreter who gave life to the eternal Spike from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, was in charge of transferring King Piccolo himself to the screen in what was not a very pleasant experience. Thus, within the framework of the Wizard World 2014 in Atlanta, she told how she was cajoled into accepting the role.
“‘Dragon Ball Z’ was important to me as a father, so I was very interested when I got the role. And they told me it was a 120 million movie with Stephen Chow producing, and Stephen Chow is the director of ‘Kung Fu sion. ‘ and ‘Shaolin Soccer’ – movies that if you haven’t seen, do, because they’re just amazing. They’re funny, goofy, violent, scary…everything you’d need to make ‘Dragon Ball’ work.”
But, of course, not all the mountain is oregano. In the end, there was a cat locked up.
“And all of a sudden I get to Durango, Mexico, and it’s a $30 million movie where Stephen Chow is just on paper to trick us into the desert. They don’t even want to pay for the stunt double to play me, so they never they used it; they just put wires on me. I still have a separated collarbone from filming, it was very unpleasant. But I still wanted my son to at least like my role.”
The tremendous crash
After a tortuous production, ‘Dragonball Evolution’ reached theaters in the United States and, despite everything, Marsters was hoping it would work at the box office. well enough to get a second chance to be able to do things right.
“And here comes the fun ending. The movie comes out, and I wanted a hit, because we’d have three more movies if it worked, and we’d have another chance to redo and adapt material from ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ and my character would transform into the Piccolo we all know, because in the movie he was King Piccolo. I wanted to become Piccolo and surprise everyone.”
But on opening night, after an unexpected turn of eventshe found the harsh reality.
“My son was excited about the movie, so we went to the multiplex and I was like, ‘Please, man, open opening night all the way up,’ and we walked into the theater and it was packed. It smelled like being human, a beautiful thing. It was hard to get three seats together. Something in my brain was like, ‘This is too good to be true.’
So I turn to the teenager next to me and say, ‘Is this Dragon Ball?’ and he says, ‘What? Nope! It’s Fast & Furious, man!’ So we got up and crossed the hall to get to the other room; my son was so nervous that he had made a mistake. I was thinking, ‘Please, only 50 people…’. We walked into the room and, including the three of us, there were five of us.”
Despite everything, ‘Dragonball Evolution’ managed to recover its declared budget of 30 million dollars thanks to its operation in international territory. While in the United States he only got 9.3 million —17% of the total—, his journey in abroad harvested 46.3 million, which made a total of 55.7. Luckily, it was not enough for them to return to torture the fandom with a second part.