20th Century Boys - The Movie Trilogy

[pep]

Well, as you may or may not know, a 20th Century Boys movie is scheduled to be released on August 30th 2008. It appears that it will be the first of several (which is a good thing, considering it would be really hard to jam such a huge storyline into a 2 hour movie) and I suppose it will cover volumes 1 to 5 or 1 to 8 (depending on wether they choose to finish it before we know what really happened on Bloody New Year´s Eve or once we are told about it 15 years later). The plot is just excellent and Urusawa´s visual style is creepy and astonishing, so the movie should be simply great if nobody screws up. All I know is that the director is Yukihiko Tsutsumi and as far as I know the cast hasn´t been revealed yet. Who do you think will play who?

There´s some more info about the movie on the site, but the web is only available in japanese so I coudn´t understand anything. Chek it out!

Here´s the really really cool teaser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-1RlEzjDPE


EDIT - part of the cast has been anounced in the site:

Toshiaki Karasawa will play Kenji

Etsushi Toyokawa will play Otcho

Takako Tokiwa will play Yukiji

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From Animenewsnetwork.com:


20th Century Boys Movies' Main Cast Confirmed in Japan
Live-action film trilogy to launch in Japan on August 30 with T.Rex theme song

This year's 10th issue (released on February 4) of Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine has confirmed the main cast of the live-action adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys psychological suspense manga. The magazine also confirmed the adaptation will now be a trilogy of films. The Sankei Sports newspaper has posted a never-before-published poster image for the film trilogy.

Toshiaki Karasawa (Casshern's Brayking Boss) will star as Kenji, a man who must look back upon his childhood memories to uncover the secrets of a cult known only as "Friend." The "Friend" cult is linked to several deaths already and may cause multitudes more throughout the world. Karasawa said that he still remembers to this day the impact the books made when he first read them, and that he is honored to play the lead. Etsushi Toyokawa (Hula Girls) and Takako Tokiwa (Brave Story) will star as Kenji's childhood friends Otcho and Yukiji, respectively. Toyokawa promised to not let down Urasawa's fans, while Tokiwa expressed surprise and excitement over becoming Yukiji.

The first chapter will open in Japan on August 30. The entire trilogy is budgeted at 6 billion yen (about US$60 million), and the crew will film on location in 7 countries, including Japan, Thailand, America, England, and China. The simultaneous shooting of the first two chapters will last from January 3 until the end of June, and the third chapter's filming will last from the middle of August until the end of October. 42 companies have made offers to distribute this film in 34 countries and regions. Urasawa, who contributed on the script, said he was excited about the film project. In particular, the English rock band T.Rex has agreed to have its "20th Century Boy" song play as the trilogy's theme song. This 1973 song helped inspired the motif of Urasawa's original manga.

Viz Media was planning to release the manga version in North America in 2005, but the release was delayed by Urasawa's request to have his earlier Monster manga published first. Viz will publish the 16th of 18 Monster volumes on August 19. 20 million copies of the 20th Century Boys manga have been sold in Japan.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...irmed-in-japan


Moved ~Nami

[gdupninja]

I just started reading the manga so I better catch up fast! Naoki Urasawa is so great. Also a live action, english flim for Monster is set to be realeased in 2009.

[Oblivion]

why not make one of monster, its the better manga...

god bless they have put in some money in the film (though 60 million is borderline for a serious trilogy)

so who is directing it?

[baboysai]

I think 20CB is better, but! I hope that's the end of it, since we're not here to talk about which is better,
but about the movie.

Well it certainly is a breather that it has (I hope) ample budget. And a good move to make it a trilogy. People were skeptic about hearing the movie rumors at first because of the epic-ness of the story that just wouldn't fit into at least 2 and a half hours or something.

[kohaku]

I think US company New Line is planning to make a movie based on Monster :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469469/

I also think there might be more potential to turn Monster into a 2h movie as it would be easier to cut some of the plot.
20th Century Boys is very dense and I think the children scenes would be very difficult to put on screen but we'll see.

[ryusuke_]

Cool to have a new thread for the movie, I missed it when it was created, so this is my first message here...

What to say... the movie I'm waiting for the most this year!


And, just going back to off-topic with no hopes to keep it anyway, I just want to comment I consider the manga of 20th Century Boys better than Monster's. Although, the anime of Monster is just a masterpiece.


Edit:
Random magazine pages found:

[dabura]

OMG look at 20thboys.com

they have a new page on the cast!

like including; yoshitsune, maruo, fukubei, god

Most of them look pretty much like their manga counterpart.

[baboysai]

loves it!

they look good and match well with the manga!

[eni]

I'm amazed. I rarely saw such a fitting cast (judging from the pictures).

It's very hard to cast real life actors for comic characters but they managed extremely well. Some look nearly identical to the pictures. Respect!

[Emily00]

Can't wait! For this year I'm waiting for this and the Hana Yori Dango the most . The actress for Yukiji looks very fitting, imo. I just pray they don't ruin it.

[ryusuke_]

The actor who's playing Manjoume does not resemble a bit to the character :S

For the rest, all good

[dabura]

Wow a french trailer has some extended scenes, Masao screaming at kenji
plus..... friend speaks!!!!; KENJI KUN - LET'S PLAY!!!!

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance...ile_shortfilms

[eni]

The trailer is breathtaking, really. Just wow - and I'm not a person who's going crazy over things like this usually.

As I said already the cast is impressive and now the life action scenes just top it even more. Looking forward to it <3

[baboysai]

aaaaah my hairs stood on end! wtf i got goosebumps! It looks so damn good!

[Emily00]

I don't know if you guys have seen this video, I saw a trailer before this one but this one has a lot more in it, sorry if it's a repost or you've already seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM4ckkcr1WU

I'm so freakin excited ahhh!!!!! Also OMG they made so many characters look perfect! (Manjoume)