Saturday, May 14, 2011

Little Known Fact: Geena Davis was to be in a Disney Live-Action Sailor Moon



Remember the 1999 Disney's Inspector Gadget? Well Inspector Gadget was a cartoon produced by DIC Entertainment in 1983 but Disney bought DiC and had them from 1995 to 2000. In 1997, they reportedly were planning a Live-Action Sailor Moon film. Even though IMDB is not very reliable, more than one website concerning Geena Davis has it that she was cast in the movie and was producing it. I remember back in 1997, reading about that and also e-mails from Geena Davis to fans and letters from fans to her. This was via Save Our Sailors website, which is no longer up but I remember it was for real. She was to play Queen Beryl but it never happened.

Most likely Disney lost interest in a live-action Sailor Moon movie, probably because the show was canceled and legal things with Toei, it just ended up in development hell. And I think it had to do with Inspector Gadget's numbers, because the sequel ended up on DVD and not back on film. I think Geena Davis would had been a good pick. Most likely if a live-action film would ever been made, a new actress would have to be cast, whoever was in charge of the production. I have made a post before on why I think a Live-action film would be a good idea and also on the fabled Saban Moon, which was not even made by Saban but by Toonmakers.

Since Disney let go of Power Rangers and is now working with Marvel, if a Power Rangers film is indeed made by Saban in the future and was a financial success, I would vouch for Saban getting his hands on the Sailor Moon franchise (since Kondasha USA now let the Manga be re-printed in English for the 20th anniversary) and maybe a film in the future. Back in the early 2000's, Toei put a freeze on the Anime airing in the US or any merchandise being made anymore outside of Japan and the 2003 series PGSM was never seen in North America. To be fair, Saban never had his hands on Sailor Moon before at all, never ever, so we can give him the chance to make an adaption, maybe he will get a producer like Jonathan Tzachor, who sticks close to the source and he or someone like him might chose to use the 2003 Toei live-action series as an example.

Also Kristen Dunst was/is a known fan of Sailor Moon. In the late 90's in a teen magazine, they showed Kristen in a bedroom with Sailor Moon stuff, she did expressed being a fan. She was asked during the first Spider-Man movie if she would ever be interested in playing a superheornie but she said she would find it too daunting, with stunts and more than just being protagonist in an action film. Recently in 2009, she was seen in Tokyo dressed like this, did Kristen change her mind?

Sources:
http://www.kyranthia.net/disneydic.html

6 comments:

GEIGREEK said...

great article! thanks!

EZ8 said...

It's like you've read my mind. I've just gotten interested back in Sailor Moon a few days ago after forgetting I used to watch it years ago on Toonami or maybe it was WB. It was all because I stumbled upon some really funny Sailor Moon+PRSamurai parodies, and then after some more videos, I find out for the first time that Toei made a live-action ver. in 2003. So now I'm really curious and plan to check that out haha.

Btw, do you know if it is any good?

Lavender Ranger said...

EZ8, PGSM is the shit! It's awesome! It's not like the anime, its closer to the manga and had its own spin but if you are fan of Sentai and Sailor Moon and Japanese culture, you'll love it, you get swept in it. It's not perfect though, there are some elements I wish they explored more and others they'd stay away from. It gets a bit repeative but even the filler episodes have some perspective.

Douglas said...

i absolutly loved Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. that was a good show and they should've done a sequel with the Outer Sensei added to the cast. i liked how there hair only became animeish when in Sailor form which helped conceal the identities better.

Mark said...

Honestly, I'd rather they had an Asian actress play Sailor Moon. I don't care if they Americanize it and make her Serena Tsukino instead of Usagi, but after The Last Airbender fiasco...

EZ8 said...

Yeah, I'd consider myself a fan of those 3 things, so I think I'll like PGSM. I mainly want to watch it out of curiosity and as a way to reignite a past interest I had forgotten as I grew up and watched other animated shows. I barely remember some of the anime's story and I don't recall ever reading the manga, so for the most part, I'll be going into PGSM with a clean slate.

My only gripe might be the corny CGI effects, but I think I can look past it. It's decent for its time and I've seen worse. And the fights will take some getting used to, can't expect Gokaiger-style choreography here. Oh god, what if there were Sailor Keys!?

GOKAI CHANGE! SERRAAA...MUUUN!
Marvelous=Mars
Joe=Mercury
Luka=Venus
Doc=Jupiter
Ahim=Moon (Both Princesses too!)
Silver=Tuxedo Mask

This would be awesome and awkward, but given that every Sentai series has a crossdressing episode, I vote for this. I wonder if there's fanart of this.

Anyways, wasn't hard to find subs at all, kinda figured it'd be TV-N, so this should be a good watch over summer break.