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Final Evangelion Film to Stream 1st 12 Minutes on Sunday
posted on by Egan Loo
The official Twitter account for the Evangelion franchise announced on Wednesday that the "first 12 minutes, 10 seconds, and 10 frames" of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time (Shin Evangelion Gekijō-ban :||), the "final" Evangelion film, will stream on the YouTube channels of Amazon Prime Video and the Studio Khara on Sunday.
Amazon Prime Video's official YouTube channel and Twitter account will present a group-watching campaign for the first three films in the tetralogy from March 5 to March 7. During the group watch of the third film on Sunday, the campaign will present more of the fourth film's opening scenes than the 10 minutes and 40 seconds shown during a July 2019 screening event. The opening scenes will remain available for streaming in Japan on Amazon Prime Video for two weeks until March 21. Comedians Akira Kawashima (of the Kirin duo) and Kōji Higashino will take part in the group-watching campaign.
The fourth film has been rescheduled to Monday, March 8, and the IMAX, MX4D, and 4DX screenings will all start on that day as well. The staff had delayed the film from January 23, after careful consideration due to the new state of emergency declared in four prefectures in Japan on January 8, and then extended to a total of 11 prefectures.
The state of emergency is scheduled to end on March 7 in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures, but Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga confirmed on Wednesday that the government is exploring whether to extend the state of emergency in those prefectures for another two weeks.
The franchise's website also confirmed that the film will be 155 minutes long, as opposed to 154 minutes as briefly listed on the website of Japan's Film Classification and Rating Organization (Eirin) earlier this month.
The film had an earlier delay due to concerns over the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and its spread inside and outside of Japan. The film was originally scheduled to open in Japan on June 27, 2020. Hikaru Utada returns to perform the theme song "One Last Kiss" for the film.
The first three films in the tetralogy, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance, and Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, debuted in 2007, 2009, and 2012 respectively. The three films had new MX4D and 4DX screenings in Japan that opened on December 4, 11, and 18, respectively.
Sources: Khara's Twitter account, Mantan Web
