Image: Dragon Ball Z, Fuji TV
Though capes and cowls have dominated the box office for more than two decades, the power of the superhero genre may finally be plateauing. As such, Hollywood is in search of new live action franchises that can resonate with audiences across the world. So why not take another crack at a live-action Dragon Ball movie?
Dragon Ball: Evolution, the 2009 live-action adaptation of the famous manga and anime series, was a critically reviled box office flop. Understandably, that would give any major studio pause before jumping back into the world of Super Saiyans. Yet the franchise’s on-screen animated entries remain quite popular to this day, underscoring untapped audience enthusiasm.
Dragon Ball Z, the anime based on creator Akira Toriyama’s manga series, was recently crowned the most globally in-demand legacy series — which takes into account any TV title that is at least 20 years old — of 2023, according to Parrot Analytics. The series also won the award back in 2021. Its long-tail of engagement and interest has helped recent series Dragon Ball Super, which ran from 2015-2018, also land among the 2.7% most in-demand series worldwide from Jan. 1, 2020-Feb. 2, 2024.
Such enduring audience demand for older series is due to consistent consumption and conversation generated by a multi-generational fanbase. That sort of built-in foundation is not easy to come by in the entertainment industry, especially when pre-established intellectual property remains a safer bet than new-to-screen originals. Dragon Ball Z’s longevity, which indicates how well a title’s demand is maintained over time, is exceptional at 66.9x more than the average title.
It isn’t just the TV series that are still thriving either. The two most recent animated films in the franchise have also performed well both monetarily and in audience demand. This coincides with a recent surge in interest for Japanese films as Godzilla: Minus One recently became the second highest-grossing non-English film in US history.
Similar to the TV series, both films are among the top 2.7% of all movies released worldwide in this timeframe. Dragon Ball Super: Broly earned an impressive $116 million at the worldwide box office, reinvigorating the franchise, while Super Hero added a healthy $87 million. The success of the property has also included a string of popular video games over the years as well as merchandise and other consumer products.
At a time when younger and male-skewing tentpole efforts have been inconsistent at best in recent years, branching out into new audience demographics is a sound strategy. It certainly worked for Barbie and Oppenheimer. Yet the younger male demo remains a highly active sector and the Dragon Ball franchise tends to over-index with males across the Gen Z, Zennial and Millennial generations. There’s a reason that a new anime series, Dragon Ball Daima, is set to premiere later this year and why anime streamer Crunchyroll recently expanded the franchise’s library on its platform.
Data cannot reverse engineer a quality blockbuster, but it can provide insight into undervalued assets with the ability to out-perform expectations when the quality (and budget control) is there. Given the ongoing cultural resonance of the Dragon Ball franchise and Hollywood’s hunger for popular IP, a second live-attempt appears to be worth a shot.
