True Machination (film)

True Machination (Japanese: 真の機械加工, Hepburn: Shin no kikai kakō) is a 2007 animated film based upon the 1991 manga of the same name by Ryotaro Sekizawa, who also served as a co-producer and co-writer. A U.S.–Japanese co-production, True Machination was animated by Production I.G. and produced by MTV Films and Red Hour Films, in association with Di Bonaventura Pictures. Tsutomu Mizushima served as the movie's director whilst Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman co-wrote the film whilst Sekizawa and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, Stuart Cornfeld and Ben Stiller all served as producers. Featuring the voices of Sara Paxton, Bruce Willis, Marton Csokas, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Gillian Anderson, Dante Basco and Thomas Haden Church, the film's story centers on a girl named Mika Yamazaki (Paxton) who gets caught in the middle of a conspiracy plot ran by a terrorist named Jiro Nonoka (Csokas). She ends up joining an alliance with Kohaku Sakuma (Willis), Shinji Fukushima (Efron) and Kiyoshi Mura (Hutcherson) and she learns that she might be the central link in order to foil his plan.
Development began in 2003, when Sekizawa was approached by Scott Aversano of MTV Films about possibly turning True Machination into a feature film. The film was officially announced in 2004, after the film was greenlit by MTV Films' owner, Paramount Pictures, and when Lorenzo di Bonaventura agreed to produce the film, and production on the film would commence later that year. Sekizawa worked on the film simultaneously with a film adaptation of The Time Traveler produced around the same time.
True Machination premiered in Los Angeles on May 7, 2007, and was released in the United States on May 11, 2007 and in Japan on July 14, 2007. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its characters, storyline, animation and faithfulness to the source material. With a budget of $45 million, the film would make back $756.8 million at the box office, making it the 5th highest grossing movie of 2007 and the most successful film based on a Sekizawa work. It was nominated at the 35th Annie Awards for Best Animated Feature, Music in a Feature Production and Voice Acting in a Feature Production and was also nominated at the 65th Golden Globe Awards for Best Animated Feature Film. The film's huge success would prompt Paramount to later co-finance and distribute The Eternal Idol in 2009.
==Plot==
Coming soon!
==Cast==
*Sara Paxton as Mika Yamazaki
*Bruce Willis as Kohaku Sakuma
*Marton Csokas as Jiro Nonoka
* Zac Efron as Shinji Fukushima
*Josh Hutcherson as Kiyoshi Mura
*Gillian Anderson as Naomi Tone
*Dante Basco as Chiasa Shinsato
*Thomas Haden Church as Inspector Kenshin
*Malese Jow as Akira Akiyama
*Victoria Justice as Sakura Kawahara
*Michael Angarano as Hideo Uehara
*Stephen Tobolowsky as Ken Morishita
*Fred Tatasciore, Kevin Michael Richardson and Stephen Stanton as Jiro's Associates. Stanton also voices a reporter heard over the radio.
*Lynsey Bartilson as Sakiko Muramoto
*Jim Cummings as a police officer
*Paul St. Peter as Tsuchida
===Additional Voices===
*James Arnold Taylor
*Phil LaMarr
*Dee Bradley Baker
*Nika Futterman
*Nicholas Guest
* Eddie Frierson
*Keith Anthony
*Tara Strong
* Sherry Lynn
*Jan Rabson
*Bob Bergen
*Chris Edgerly
* Jess Harnell
* Mickie McGowan
==Production==
Coming soon!
==Release==
===Marketing===
The teaser trailer for the film made it's premiere with Jackass Number Two on September 22, 2006. It was then attached to the theatrical releases of Open Season, The Guardian, Flyboys, The Departed, Employee of the Month, The Last Kiss, Babel, The Marine, The Grudge 2, Flags of Our Fathers, Borat, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, Flushed Away, Unaccompanied Minors, Stranger than Fiction, A Good Year, Casino Royale, Deja Vu, Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, The Fountain and To Live. The theatrical trailer was released in December 2006 and was attached to the theatrical releases of, The Holiday, Eragon The Pursuit of Happiness, Perfume: Story of a Murderer, Freedom Writers, Miss Potter, Stomp the Yard, Alpha Dog, The Hitcher, Smokin' Aces, Epic Movie, Blood and Chocolate, The Messengers, Norbit, Music and Lyrics, Amazing Grace and Reno 911: Miami. A third trailer was released in March of 2007. The first TV spot for the film was released in April of 2007, and additional spots were broadcast into June of that year.
Promotional partners for the film included 7-Eleven, Intel Corporation, Pizza Hut, Kmart, Nike, Inc. and Verizon Wireless, as well as various companies specializing in home decorating. A tie in deal with Burger King was considered, but Paramount decided not to go with it as they and Sekizawa felt that the film's fairly dark tone made the idea rather illfitting. In addition to Pizza Hut, promotional partners for the Japanese release included Mister Donut, Mitsubishi Corporation, East Japan Railway and Hi-Chew. Ryotaro Sekizawa himself wrote an alternate version of the original manga called True Machination: Film Edition based upon the film's version of the story. Despite the United States' heavy contributions to the production, the manga did not see a release outside of Japan. Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the film, which was based on an earlier draft of the screenplay that had scenes removed from the final film. A video game based on the movie, also titled True Machination, was developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment and published by MTV Games and THQ.
===Theatrical release===
True Machination had it's world premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on May 7, 2007. It was then released theatrically across America on May 11, 2007. In Japan, the Japanese dubbed version of the film was released by GAGA HUMAX on July 14, 2007.
===Home media===
True Machination was released on DVD and HD DVD in the United States by Paramount Home Entertainment on October 16, 2007. The DVD came in both a full screen and widescreen single disc release and a widescreen two disc "Collector's Edition" release, whilst the HD DVD release came in a two disc release only. Both disc editions contain an audio commentary from Ryotaro Sekizawa, Ben Stiller and Bruce Cannon, a making of featurette on the film and three deleted scenes, whilst the second disc on the "Collector's Edition" DVD and HD DVD contain several more in-depth production featurettes, another featurette on the film's premiere, and the film's trailers and TV spots. It was the second best performing DVD release of that week behind Transformers, making back $628,387 in DVD sales by the end of the week. Paramount later released the film on Blu-ray on March 17, 2009, which included a trailer for The Eternal Idol.
In Japan, a limited edition True Machination premium box set was released on February 13, 2008. It featured the same content from the American release with the exception of it spanning two DVD discs (one containing the film, the other containing special features with two that are exclusive to Japan) and has both English and Japanese dub (along with English and Japanese subtitles.) The box set also comes with a DVD (containing a single story on some events leading up to the film and an image gallery), Production Notes (featuring 80 pages of character art and set designs from the film), a Micro SD, a postcard, a small bookmark (a reel from the film inside a plastic cover), and the drawn plans from the film.
==Reception==
===Box Office===
True Machination opened in over 4,000 theaters in the United States on May 11, 2007. Initially, there was a bit of scepticism about the movie's performance, as it was not only an animated movie made for an older audience, it was also a 2-D animated movie, neither of which were performing absolutely well during that time period. Additionally, there were concerns over competition with movies being released around the same time like 28 Weeks Later and Shrek the Third. 
Ultimately, in it's opening weekend, True Machination opened at number 2 at the box office behind Spider-Man 3, grossing a total of $156 million. The film would go on to become the 5th highest-grossing film of 2007 behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third, grossing $379,237,847 domestically and $377,130,729 internationally for a combined total of $756,368,576, exceeding Paramount Pictures' expectations. It was the highest grossing non-sequel film of that year and the second highest-grossing animated film of that year. 
===Critical reception===
True Machination received generally positive reviews from critics. It holds a 80% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 226 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10 and the consensus reading, "With some impressive animation, fun action and strong vocal performances, this adaptation of Ryotaro Sekizawa's manga proves it is possible to make an animated action thriller with very similar spectacle as it's live action counterparts." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 36 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Category:2007
Category:2007 animated films
Category:Anime-influenced animation films
Category:Anime films
Category:Action
Category:Action films
Category:Action Thriller
Category:Animated action
Category:Animated action films
Category:Paramount Pictures
Category:Paramount
Category:Paramount Pictures films
Category:Paramount films
Category:Paramount Pictures animated films
Category:Paramount animated films
Category:MTV Films
Category:MTV Films films
Category:Red Hour Films
Category:Production I.G
Category:Production I.G.