A total of 59 new character designs from the upcoming Dragonball Z special entitled, “Heya Son Goku and Friends Return”, have been leaked. The completion of these concept designs includes several versions of each known character along with some of the brand new characters. Many thanks goes out to Daizex.com and Kanzentai.com! You can view them all here in our gallery!

According to Actors Access, the Dragonball film will begin re shooting starting October 30th. This process is meant to add extra scenes and re film certain scenes. This is very common during post production in movies. Is there a possibility that this may delay the movie, but for the better? I think so. Here are the details that were provided from the site.

Friday, Oct. 17, 2008, 3:38 PM PacificDRAGONBALL Feature Film SAG		Casting Director: Jason Smith Interview Dates: Immediately Shoot/Start Date: October 30, 2008 Pay Rate: SAG Scale Location: 20th Century Fox, Los Angeles
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY		TEL: 818/752-4929

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 Daizenshuu EX has released more new early concept art (by Akira Toriyama) from the new DBZ special entitled ‘Heya Son Goku and his friends return!‘. As many of you know, the special was already shown on an exclusive basis during the Jump Anime Tour in Japan the last month. The special itself has yet to be released at all since, so I think it is great that we are getting more concept art and information concerning the new Dragonball Z special now. View them below.

Chow Yun Fat (who plays Master Roshi in Dragonball) was recently interviewed at a press conference in Hong Kong. He basically was asked if he would work any Hong Kong films in the future and replied saying he has read several scripts, unfortunately those characters don’t fit him well. He also went on to say he will later set off to the United States and voice the movie Dragonball. I believe he pretty much stated he will be dubbing the Chinese version of the Dragonball movie, but that isn’t 100%. Although this isn’t anything big at all really, still an interesting bit of news. Read below for a portion of the interview (sorry its poorly translated)

For “Dragon Ball”, “Shanghai” dubbing

Zaipai when talking about the film, the Colombian said that he had read the script many, but not to their role. As for the Johnnie To invite him to perform foreign film, he said that the script is still being repeated changes in order to balance the tastes of East and West. Then he would go to the United States as “Dragon Ball” voice, “Shanghai” will work in the United Kingdom dub, or the end of the year will be busy next year’s workload will be less.  

Source

Some new Jump Anime Tour DBZ special character designs have leaked over at daizex.com. These include a new one of Goku, Goten, and one of the unknown character named “Gure” that many have theorized to be Vegeta’s younger brother Table’s wife. Expect a few more designs in the next few days to release.

FOX has recently informed me that they are shooting for the trailer to be released 12/12/2008. This isn’t 100% just yet, this is only what their planned release date is (remember that they said the same thing with Max Payne). Anyways, that would mean the trailer might premiere with “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. In my opinion, I think this is a great idea. Not so much it being premiered with “The Day the Earth Stood Still” but being released near Christmas time. During this time, promotion for the film will officially begin. So expect to see plenty of TV spots/merchandise/etc around X-mas time.

Ok, I was asked not to post this verbatim (so I summarized it all) so I ask of anyone that wishes to post this to email me and ask permission. But anyways, I did get another chance to speak with FOX and I asked a few questions regarding the promotion of the Dragonball movie. Some of which we pretty much speculated already, some slightly new information and some questions couldn’t be answered just yet.

1. When will promotion for the film Dragonball officially begin and what can we expect?
Promotion will truly begin when we launch the official trailer. Expect to see plenty of TV spots and action closer to the release. This is typical with any campaign. The fans will really feel the motion of the movie to begin by the end of the year and will be promoted at many targeted events in 2009.

2. A Junior Novel and Video Game have been confirmed. Any other possible merchandise? Maybe a TV spin off or new comic series?
Currently could not be answered, hopefully they will get back to me on this.

3. There has been a rumor going around that the sequal to this film will begin filming in the first quarter of 2009. Any truth to this?
There is no news on a sequal just yet. We tend to wait out and see how the initial film does and if sequals can be financed.

4. How reliant is this film on visual effects? Is the majority of the money going towards CGI (such as cities, fight scenes, etc.)?
There will be a lot of amazing effects and yes.

5. How would you compare the official trailer that releases later this year to the teaser that was shown during the licensing expo?
The actual trailer will be different. The teaser shown didn’t have enough ‘energy’ and did not fully reflect the film itself. The teaser was only inteded to show certain elements for L&M purposes and to introduce characters to trade people. This piece did not show the hardcore action that the movie will contain, but the full trailer will.

8. Thank you for your time.
Thanks!

DBTheMovie.com also has a source that described some upcoming new high quality promo pictures.

Goku is sitting sideways on a (non-moving) type of bike/buggy. I’m not sure if it is a three or four wheeler, but there are two wheels at the front, it looks all mean and futuristic and most importantly, it’s dusty and needs a good wash.

Goku is chomping into what looks to be a turkey drumstick. Either that or it’s a gigantic chicken drumstick. He’s wearing his grey-black jacket and dark trousers and it’s in a street setting.

In a fight scene with Goku it appears that Piccolo’s ribbed armor is strapped on around his sides. He has strange black leather gloves on and a long sword with a square, not pointed end. Around his collar is quite a bit of black braid and brocade.

In all the photos of Piccolo I’ve seen so far, he isn’t green. But in the details ones he looks like he has moss forming in his crevices, so he does have a green tinge.

Over his ribbed armor, Piccolo wears a full length hooded cloak, which is the dark browny crimson color as seen in the trailer. It has a rich texture, it looks very exotic and has rows of Sequined circles up the front panels. Extremely nice and billowy.

When Piccolo does swirly things it is revealed that he has striped panels of dark velvety pink at the back of his cloak.

Overall, I’d say he looks like a modern, darker version of Piccolo from the show. But with a bad case of black ear wax and a much better cloak.

Ok, let me first apologize for the removal of the Dragonball movie trailers, but it had to be done for the time being. But I recently received a welcoming email from FOX staff concerning the trailer that was shown and the full blown trailer that is officially still being worked on. It has pretty much been confirmed that it will not be shown during Max Payne, although that was their original intentions. Read below for the email sent to me to clear anything up.

First off, we love your enthusiasm for the film. We are so sorry to ask that you remove the content. It is not meant to irritate or discourage you and your readers from following this film campaign. It’s just that the pieces of content that are being leaked were not created to be used this way. They were only meant to be shown to potential Licensing & Merchandising partners who need to make partnering decisions far in advance of release date, and the content has not been approved for online use. Elements like music clearances and even talent approvals have not been pursued because we had no intention of having this go online. Alot goes into a trailer or video being authorized for online use….

We had hoped to have a really kick-ass trailer done by MAX PAYNE’s in-theater date, but because alot of effects shots are still being worked on - we’ve decided to wait until there is more material to work with, so we can really “wow” you and the fans. This is not uncommon for a film that still has 6 months until it goes in theaters. It looks like the real trailer will be released a little later in the year.

Again, thanks for all your interest. I am happy to update you when we get new artwork and approved video to distribute. We appreciate you removing the content, and don’t mean to cause you any headaches with your readers

The only reason I posted this email was to inform you guys about the current progress on the actual trailer.