Imdb has setup a page for an upcom­ing movie enti­tled, [E]vangelion (2004). Despite hold­ing the same title, this project seems com­pletely unre­lated to the live action movie. It is in fact a “dan­ish” movie. Don’t expect to find any details of the NGE movie, but we will see how Imdb devel­ops this page. IMDB link Apolo­gies for few updates, life has been busy on a tour of Europe.

About Weta Work­shop, Ltd Founded in 1987 by Richard Tay­lor, Tania Rodger, Peter Jack­son and Jamie Selkirk, Weta is a phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal effects com­pany pro­vid­ing crea­tures, spe­cial make-up effects, pros­thet­ics, minia­tures, armor, weaponry and dig­i­tal effects for the film and tele­vi­sion indus­try. Over the past six­teen years the com­pany has pro­vided effects for Jackson’s Meet the Fee­bles, Brain­dead (aka Dead Alive), Heav­enly Crea­tures, The Fright­en­ers, and The Lord of the Rings movie tril­ogy, as well as for adver­tise­ments and tele­vi­sion shows includ­ing the pop­u­lar Her­cules and Xena series. At the height of pro­duc­tion on The Lord of the Rings, Weta Work­shop employed 150 phys­i­cal effects tech­ni­cians and 350 dig­i­tal effects tech­ni­cians at Weta Dig­i­tal. Weta’s work on The Lord of the Rings has gar­nered world­wide praise includ­ing two Acad­emy Awards in 2002 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup), and one in 2003 (for Best Visual Effects). The British Acad­emy has also hon­ored Weta’s work by award­ing two BAF­TAs in 2002 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup) and two more in 2003 (for Best Visual Effects and Best Costume).

About Gainax Gainax was founded in 1984. It began as a corps of ama­teur film­mak­ers, cen­tered around cur­rent com­pany pres­i­dent Hiroyuki Yam­aga and animé direc­tor Hideaki Anno. Their first work, Wings of Hon­neamise, con­tin­ues to gar­ner praise world­wide. Gainax’s highly orig­i­nal style of film­mak­ing spans the gen­er­a­tions, appeal­ing to fans both young and old. 1995’s Neon Gen­e­sis Evan­ge­lion whipped up an animé fever of extra­or­di­nary pro­por­tions, receiv­ing atten­tion not only from animé fans, but also from many other cor­ners of soci­ety. Hideaki Anno, who directed Neon Gen­e­sis Evan­ge­lion, com­mands respect from even the likes of Spir­ited Away direc­tor Hayao Miyazaki.

About ADV Films: In 1992, ADV Films began to forge the inter­na­tional mar­ket for Japan­ese ani­ma­tion (“animé”) by com­bin­ing unique titles, out­stand­ing pro­duc­tion val­ues and effi­cient large-scale dis­tri­b­u­tion. Today, ADV Films is the #1 producer-distributor of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion to the North Amer­i­can mar­ket, with the firm’s hold­ings includ­ing such pre­mier titles as NOIR, Sailor Moon, Samu­rai X, Hello Kitty’s Par­adise, RahX­ephon, Sprig­gan, Robot­ech, Full Metal Panic and Neon Gen­e­sis Evan­ge­lion. In addi­tion, ADV Films’ prod­uct line has expanded to include other forms of genre pro­gram­ming, includ­ing live-action sci­ence fic­tion pro­grams Gene Roddenberry’s Androm­eda, Mutant X and The Jim Hen­son Company’s Farscape, and clas­sic sci­ence fic­tion such as the updated Gam­era tril­ogy. ADV Films’ par­ent com­pany, A.D. Vision, Inc., also pub­lishes New­type USA, the pre­mier animé and manga monthly in the English-speaking world, and oper­ates The Animé Net­work™, broad­cast­ing animé and animé-related pro­gram­ming via dig­i­tal cable, 24 hours a day. Head­quar­tered in Hous­ton, Texas, USA, with addi­tional offices in the EU and Japan, and dis­tri­b­u­tion on four con­ti­nents, ADV is fast becom­ing an inter­na­tional enter­tain­ment pow­er­house. For more infor­ma­tion, visit ADV Films on the web at http://​www​.adv​films​.com.

Source: dig​i​tal​ly​ob​sessed​.com

“We are very excited to be a part of this won­der­ful project,” Weta boss Richard Tay­lor said. “The sub­ject mat­ter is pro­vid­ing a fan­tas­tic level of diver­sity for us, allow­ing us to work in the animé world – which is at the other end of the design spec­trum from Middle-earth. Hav­ing had the priv­i­lege of work­ing on such strong source mate­r­ial that The Lord of the Rings offered, it is a priv­i­lege to again be involved in sub­ject mat­ter that has a strong and loyal fan base.”

Neon Gen­e­sis Evan­ge­lion cre­ator Hideaki Anno is enthused about the project. “Evan­ge­lion was cre­ated with a very Japan­ese sen­si­bil­ity,” said Anno. “In the live-action ver­sion, though, I sug­gested that the cre­ators let their imag­i­na­tions roam, uncon­strained by the frame­work of the exist­ing animé. There are some very sur­pris­ing ideas in the new design plans — things I’d never thought of before. I was amazed to encounter such dif­fer­ent ways of think­ing about the project. I’m very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing the re-creation of the title.”

Source: New­type

Accord­ing to sources from Weta the movie is cur­rently in its pre-production stages. The movie, in its cur­rent form exists as sev­eral hun­dred con­cept images, a few of which have appeared in the New­type mag­a­zine, and a draft screen­play which awaits edit­ing by the cho­sen direc­tor. The project seems to have been in the works now for a solid few months with the Weta team work­ing hard on per­fect­ing visual prepa­ra­tion (Weta appear very ded­i­cated, sources telling us that they have turned down two other projects over this one).

The film will not be directed by Hideaki Anno, nei­ther will it be directed by Peter Jack­son. Rumors have been fly­ing around about who might be involved in a direct­ing sense; who could do the series jus­tice, remain true to the sto­ry­line and still pull off a fan­tas­tic movie? That is the ques­tion that Gainax have to answer.

Source: Animé Tourist

Recent Inter­net rumors sug­gest that the Evan­ge­lion movie shall have the bud­get equal to that of a block­buster, being roughly of 100 mil­lion or more. To com­pare this with other top movies; The Matrix had a $63 mil­lion bud­get and LOTR: Fel­low­ship of the Ring had a bud­get of $109 mil­lion. It is unknown where such cash is com­ing from as the income of Animé does not rival that of Hol­ly­wood blockbusters.

Like LOTR, the core of the prin­ci­ple pho­tog­ra­phy will be filmed in New Zealand.

Along the lines of a plot and adap­ta­tion of the series, recent inter­net rumors sug­gest the film will focus on the first half of the 26 episode series — pos­si­bly extend­ing the story with a later sequel — all the con­tent cov­ered within NGE is dif­fi­cult to include yet often too impor­tant to miss out.

Gainax are keep­ing hush hush about details of the flick although they have a busy sched­ule for the movie and its “pro­mo­tion”, so expect to find out more saucy details in the com­ing weeks.

Source: Animé Tourist

Recently appear­ing in a Japan­ese mag­a­zine are some artis­tic impres­sions of how things shall look in the live action NGE movie.

Pur­chase DVD

29 images from Res­ur­rec­tion DVD

00. Rei/Ray Plug­suit 27.6kb, 218x344
01. Unit 00 Berserker 36.3kb, 582x372
02. Unit 02 Head, 34.5kb, 469x399
03. Unit 02 Shoot­ing, 39.9kb, 643x447
04. Unit 02 Land­scape (beau­ti­ful image), 43.0kb, 624x404
05. Rei/Ray rear view, 32.2kb, 239x413
06. Con­trol Cen­ter Red Alert, view from tower, 55.1kb, 600x480
07. Con­trol Cen­ter, view at tower, 61.8kb, 600x480
08. Nerv Con­trol Cen­ter, 60.1kb, 485x400
09. Another look at the Con­trol Cen­ter, 53.0kb, 600x480
10. First image of an Angel, Ramiel, 30.7kb, 241x396
11. Ramiel’s drilling device, 34.8kb, 233x422
12. Evan­ge­lion Hangar room, 53.3kb, 600x480
13. Another view of the hangar, show­ing all three evas, 58.1kb, 469x392
14. Asuka/Kate Rose in plug­suit front view, 31.6kb, 241x410
15. Asuka/Kate Rose in plug­suit rear view, 32.5kb, 240x411
16. Char­ac­ter pos­si­bly Mis­ato, 33.2kb, 220x404
17. A view of New City with air­craft fly­ing over, 54.6kb, 600x480
18. A view of New City show­ing a mono­rail, 57.2kb, 600x480
19. A view of New City with rem­nants of the past, 47.5kb, 600x480
20. Unit 00 injured, 38.8kb, 230x393
21. Pro­file view of Unit 00, 38.6kb, 245x416
22. Pro­file view of Unit 01, 38.3kb, 242x411
23. Unit 01 head close up, 32.4kb, 243x411
24. Pro­file view of Unit 02, 37.7kb, 236x402
25. Sus­pended Unit, 31.8kb, 212x419
26. Sus­pended Unit, 34.4kb, 248x419
27. Unit 02 head close up, 45.0kb, 479x406
28. Unit being restrained and repaired, 50.7kb, 453x418
29. Evan­ge­lion Weapon Rack, 54.4kb, 463x391