Poking around Ain't it Cool News today I found this link:

http://anime-tourist.com/article.php?sid=453

The relevant info from Fanime Con 03 is at the bottom of the page. I
will quote:


[quote]

The live action Evangelion movie has a budget of 100 million. As many
of you know, Weta, the art and special effect folks behind LOTR, is
involved as well. According to Matt, "If they do half of what they've
sketched, it will be the most amazing sci-fi movie you'll ever see."
The movie will be shot partially on location in New Zealand and will
feature an international cast. The movie will not be a prequel or
sequel, but a new retelling of the story in a feature format.

On a related note, the folks from Gainax were very tight-lipped about
the movie, dodging the questions or suggesting we talk to ADV. They
did, however, bring and show some proofs for the big Gainax spread
that's coming out in the July Newtype-USA. Apparently, a lot of
information about the movie will be revealed in the articles and they
didn't want to give anything away.

Update: 6/27/03
The July Newtype-USA is out and it does contain a set of articles
about Gainax. However, most of the articles are discussions with key
Gainax personel and the history of Gainax, and they are an interesting
read on their own. What's not there is any sort of information about
the movie that's not already covered by press releases. In fact you'll
know more about the movie after reading this article than you will
from reading Newtype-USA. What they do have is several images for
various movie bits that Weta has drawn up. That's cool. As a side
note, the Newtype-USA cover was *not* run in Japan (usually, we get
the Japanese covers a month later) and is fact one of the original
images Gainax did when they were shopping the Evangelion idea around.

[/quote]


100 MILLION!!! Mind that Lord of the Rings' bugdet was somewhere
around $350 million, and that the average Star Trek movie (which would
have more similar costuming and special effects requirements) is about
$50 million. This could be good.

-- Drinian