Halo Legends/Ex Machina‘s Joseph Chou: film may ‘start moving even next year’

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.

Chou discussed the difficulties of selling the concept of the film to studios in Hollywood, due to the complexity of the story. However, Chou said that “right now we’re with a producer and a studio that really understands beyond the whole mecha impact.” Chou added, “They’re really looking beyond that, and really looking at drama, human elements, even to those elements that appeal to otaku.”

Chou also said the reason the movie stopped moving forward was due to the anime market crash. Chou said “the reason it stopped in its tracks was not because [John Ledford, co-founder of A.D. Vision and ADV Films] wasn’t paying attention to it … he actually amassed a considerable amount of money, financing, for the film … but then I think he just needed to stop, because the whole market was falling apart at that time,” and as a result the movie “fell on the wayside.” At that time Chou took over the task of presenting the film to Hollywood producers and studios. Chou mentioned that Ledford is still a part of the project.

The project was first announced at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival as a joint project between Gainax, Weta Workshop, and ADV Films. At that time, Ledford had given the project an “aggressive timetable.”
(View the rest of the article at Producer: Live-Action Evangelion Project Still Active)