Professor Layton Movie On-Track for 2010 Release - OMG Nintendo

For most of us in Eagleland, yesterday was a big deal because it was our Thanksgiving. In Japan, yesterday was a big deal because it marked the release of the third and final game in the Professor Layton trilogy, currently known by the awesome title Professor Layton and the Final Time Journey. While Layton did well enough in foreign territories, the games are ludicrously popular in Japan, with Final Time Journey moving 700,000 copies in its first shipment.

A Layton-themed press conference held Wednesday night had some more good news for fans: the Layton animated film, with the appropriate title Professor Layton The First Movie, is set for a 2010 launch date. Visually the movie's goal is to be a feature-length version of the striking animated cutscenes from the Layton games. The original release will star Japanese voice actors Maki Honda as Luke and Yo Oizumi as Layton.

There's no official word on whether or not the Layton movie will see North American release, but it seems likely. While a prospective Layton dub would hopefully use the same actors who dubbed for Luke and Layton in the game, this is not a sure deal given the way North American anime distribution works.

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Kouban
Nov 28 2008 at 12:46:51:PM PST

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What? Why?

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Lynxara
Nov 28 2008 at 09:19:54:PM PST

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Most North American anime distributors tend to contract to particular outside studios when it comes to ADR services. Notably, ADV does (or did for a time, anyway) use its own internal studios with its own talent.

There is, basically, no guarantee that whatever NA distributor that got the rights to a Professor Layton movie would be able to contract whatever studio handled ADR for the game. If it was a studio in an entirely different geographic location, being able to get the original actors into the studio at all becomes an issue.

It would really depend on the sort of budget allotted to localization, and how much money a potential NA licensor of the material thought could be made from it. It is entirely possible that Nintendo would have more to spend on ADR for the game's voice clips than an NA anime distributor would have to spend on ADR for the movie.