Budget

The movie will have a budget of approximately one hundred million - this is a rough estimate but it gives us the info that this movie will be a blockbuster (hopefully of epic proportions).
“Recent Internet rumors suggest that the Evangelion movie shall have the budget equal to that of a blockbuster, being roughly of 100 million or more. To compare this with other top movies; The Matrix had a $63 million budget and LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring had a budget of $109 million. It is unknown where such cash is coming from as the income of Anime does not rival that of Hollywood blockbusters.”

Storyline

The movie will focus on the first few episodes of the series. From the production images it can be gathered that the movie is set to feature “Ramiel” the cube with the wonderful drilling device - an episode that showed us the beauty of japanese power and big guns - something ripe for special effects.

The effects will be worked upon by the masters behind Lord of the Rings, Weta Workshop.
“”We are very excited to be a part of this wonderful project,” Weta boss Richard Taylor said. “The subject matter is providing a fantastic level of diversity for us, allowing us to work in the anime world – which is at the other end of the design spectrum from Middle-earth. Having had the privilege of working on such strong source material that The Lord of the Rings offered, it is a privilege to again be involved in subject matter that has a strong and loyal fan base.”

Director

Hideaki Anno will NOT be directing and Peter Jackson looks tied up also. Much speculation has been spent as to who will direct and rumor has “three A list directors” inline, but nothing concrete and no name dropping as yet.

Executive Producer

Husband of voice actress for Asuka - Tiffany Grant, Matthew Greenfield

Name Changes and Consistency

This comes up again and again, and has been adressed partially in the rumors section but I will mention it here also. Concept art with the names “Ray” and “Kate Rose” appeared and there was outroar. In all liklihood these will NOT be the names of the characters in the films, WETA’s site describes the concept art with the correct names and Richard Taylor announced in a podcast his dedication to preserving the integrity of and remaining faithful to the original anime. For more details see the rumors page. However it is doubtful that it will be exactly the same… what would be the point in creating a mere replica? Many aspects will be altered simply to present the story in another medium without making it look “out of place” or plain wrong.

Cast

At such an early stage no actors have as yet been cast. The age and ethnicity of the actors is thusly also unknown, though it is likely the cast will not be entirely Japanese or entirely American.