Two lead actors have been cast for 20 Century Fox’s big-screen, live-action adaptation of the hugely popular Dragonball manga, animated series and video game franchise. Daily Variety reports that Justin Chatwin, star of the recent supernatural thriller The Invisible, will play hero Goku while James Marsters, better known as menacing blood sucker Spike from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, takes on the villainous role of Piccolo. Shooting is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15.
Drabonball began as a manga created by Akira Toriyama and published under Shueisha’s Jump Comics label. The books spawned a successful toon series, nearly a dozen animated movies and a line of video games that has seen more than 10 million units shipped to date. The latest, Atari’s Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3, shipped to retailers in North America for PlayStation 2 this week and will be available for Wii later this holiday season.
The Dragonball movie is being directed by James Wong (The One, Final Destination, Final Destination 3) and produced by Stephen Chow, the writer, director and actor behind the international hit Kung Fu Hustle. Wong will be working from his own script. An earlier version of the screenplay was penned by Ben Ramsey, who wrote director John Singleton’s upcoming comic-book adaptation Luke Cage.
