On February 13, 2025, ‘Shingeki no Kyojin’ will be released in theaters around the world, but it will be a compilation of the last two episodes of the series. In the midst of live-action fever (sometimes brilliant, like ‘One Piece’, and sometimes not so brilliant, like the recent ‘Mufasa’), it is inevitable to wonder if we will ever go to theaters to see a live-action adaptation of ‘Attack on Titan’.
In Japan, of course, they already did, as they already released two movies, each worse than the other, covering the first stages of the adventure of Eren, Mikasa and company (‘Attack on Titan’ and ‘Attack on Titan 2: End of the World’, with a 4.7 and a 4 respectively in FilmAffinity). Their poor reception prevented them from crossing the pond, and most reviews point in the same direction: both make too many changes and both are too crappy.
All users agree that “it seems like they only care about cutting costs” and that they have “pretty ugly CGI”, “cardboard sets”, overacting actors, and a script that does not value Isayama’s original story. And this is exactly why we will never have a perfect Attack on Titan live-action movie. The budget.
A movie as violent and spectacular as the manga and anime would require the entire Hollywood machine behind it and an R-rated certificate. Although the first seems to be the most difficult, it has already been achieved, as Warner Bros. became interested in the project seven years ago and even chose a director (Andy Muschietti, responsible for the last two adaptations of “It”).
In fact, what has held everything back is the R rating. These types of movies tend to have much smaller budgets, as it is understood that they target a smaller potential audience and therefore make less at the box office. The success of movies like ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ is a rara avis in the list of highest grossing movies in history, and yet their budgets are no nonsense (100 million and 200 million respectively). At least compared to ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Avatar’ or ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ (between 300 and 400).
Add to that the fact that there is no precedent for a live-action movie that has done well at the box office… many of us are afraid that either Hollywood will change overnight and become brave, or we will have to settle for cheap, crappy adaptations of ‘Shingeki no Kyojin’ that are far from perfect.
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