Ohay­ocon attendee Chris Adkins has been in touch to inform us that the stu­dio dis­cus­sions and fight for final rights of the Evan­ge­lion adap­ta­tion prop­er­ties are in the midst of tak­ing place, with every­thing still going ahead given the suc­cess of that other big robot movie, Trans­form­ers. Joseph Cho is in charge of the the Gainax/Studio rela­tions and Matt Green­field is hop­ing for some offi­cial announce­ments some­time in the next 9 months.

It cer­tainly is good to see some news, but we really want that announce­ment ASAP, we’re all still wait­ing with bated breath.

The News: In an Evan­ge­lion panel at the Ohay­ocon animé con­ven­tion in Colum­bus Ohio on Jan­u­ary 30th, ADV direc­tor Matt Green­field announced that sev­eral U.S. stu­dios are com­pet­ing for final rights to the project, mean­ing that actual pro­duc­tion should begin soon. The delay on the project is due largely to the Trans­form­ers movie: The stu­dios wanted to make sure that a “giant robot” movie would appeal to an Amer­i­can audi­ence. The nego­ti­a­tions between the U.S. stu­dios and Gainax are being han­dled by Joseph Cho, who assisted in the pro­duc­tion of “Apple­seed: Ex Machina”, an ani­mated film based on the Apple­seed series, so Mr. Cho has pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence in deal­ing with stu­dio types.

Matt Green­field esti­mates that an offi­cial announce­ment, includ­ing nam­ing the stu­dio, the direc­tor, and per­haps cast­ing infor­ma­tion, would be made within the next 9 months.

Thanks Chris!

At the Well­gin­ton Armaged­don Pop Cul­ture Con, Richard Tay­lor spoke about his enthu­si­asm for the Evan­ge­lion live action movie with a fan:

Thanks Tino!

Accord­ing to one of our forum mem­bers, zandor117, who was present at the ADV panel at Animé Week­end Atlanta, ADV’s David Williams said that the Evan­ge­lion live action movie is now mov­ing into pro­duc­tion. We have seen no other report, even though the same panel was used to announce sev­eral animé licenses that have been reported by rep­utable animé news sources.

Accord­ing to zandor117, this is what was said:

Ques­tioner: “Is there any­thing new about the EVA movie?”

David Williams: “The EVA movie is now in Production”

Ques­tioner: “Can you tell us the director?”

David Williams: “I am not allowed to say that yet.”

ADV has not yet com­mented further.

While this does not seem like full pro­duc­tion (i.e. film­ing actors) or even fully fledged pre-production like set build­ing, the main con­crete news seems to be that a direc­tor has signed on, mov­ing the project beyond the pro­posal and devel­op­ment phase. Pre­vi­ously, nego­ti­a­tions were under way with a short­list of direc­tors who had expressed an inter­est, but the deci­sion had not been made yet.

Read the orig­i­nal dis­cus­sion thread

A blog net­work deliv­er­ing the lat­est news updates on a range of in-production block­buster movies.

Our friends over at Ani​mes​ta​tion​.net, have posted a marathon inter­view ses­sion with Matt Green­field which took place a few days ago at Animé North.

The Evan­ge­lion live action stuff starts at the end of video 2. In video 3 you’ll learn about Weta’s involve­ment, designs for “shell retrieval” vehi­cles and Greenfield’s pro­jected time frame. A great inter­view all around.

Video 1:

Video 2:

Video 3

:

Video 4:

Video 5

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You can see the Ani​mes​ta​tion​.net YouTube account here.

Triv­ial Being min­ion darthikari attended a panel at Animé Cen­tral (acen) this week­end. When the Evan­ge­lion live action project came up, Matt Green­field said that the movie is still hap­pen­ing, and that Weta and undis­closed “big names” are still on board, but that he could still not announce any details.

The only news here is that the sta­tus of the Evan­ge­lion live action movie(s) seems unchanged by the announe­ment of the four-movie ani­mated re-make by Gainax.

More info on the ADV panel (with­out the live action news) here: ANN: Animé Cen­tral 2007: ADV Films

Dis­cus­sion thread: acen update

Anatael is back with a new incar­na­tion. He has spent the last cou­ple of months work­ing on a new Evan­ge­lion teaser trailer. As fan efforts typ­i­cally go, this is some­thing to behold. See if you can spot Asuka, Rei, etc. With­out fur­ther adieu:

Con­tin­u­ing on the theme of the pre­vi­ous post, here are some fan made live action Neon Gen­e­sis Evan­ge­lion movie trail­ers built from the clips of a few well known movies. They are put together pretty well and I’ll leave you to work out who is cast as each character: