I'm wondering about the legal issues surrounding the encorporation of elements from EoE into the live action movie series.

The movie is being produced by ADV films, but the rights to EoE are owned by Manga ent., which presents a problem.

Is it just the rights to the distribution of EoE in the west that they own, or do they also own the rights to the story itself & movie exclusive creatures like Eve & the Harpies?

Would ADV be forbidden from using the story elements from EoE at the end of the series, including the Harpies, Eve & the sea of LCL? If they couldn't do a more-or-less direct adaptation of EoE, could they still re-write the story to include the Harpies some other way?

I only ask because I really love the Harpies & would love to see what they look like re-designed.

Is it just the rights to the distribution of EoE in the west that they own, or do they also own the rights to the story itself & movie exclusive creatures like Eve & the Harpies?

The former. 99.9999999% of all non-DVD EoE-related paraphernalia has absolutley nothing to do with Manga Entertainment. In fact, Manga barely owns itself.

Would ADV be forbidden from using the story elements from EoE at the end of the series, including the Harpies, Eve & the sea of LCL? If they couldn't do a more-or-less direct adaptation of EoE, could they still re-write the story to include the Harpies some other way?

Dreamworks distributed Millenium Actress here in the West, but they otherwise hold no weight on the story. If someone wanted to do a live-action remake of that film outside of America, it seems doubtful that Dreamworks would have to be consulted at all, with the exception of someone wanting to incorporate the American packaging into the new production in some way. The rules regarding anime commerce held outside the channels of Big Sisters seem a tinge more lucid than that, even. Anything regarding the script translation or dub of EoE, IIRC, is the property of Gaijin Productions--AWL's company--and not Manga.

My biggest push in the direction of believing that Manga is not a force to be feared is in the way that their DVDs are always filled with the video promotional materials of equally small-to-smaller distribution houses. (I enjoyed that music video they stuck onto EoE, and for a while thought it had something to do with the movie. Made me cry, it did.) They really do seem really meager, and I'm really not certain that they "own" anything other than the very DVDs they print and the boxes they put them in.

It seems like the only people to deal with would be GAINAX, possibly SEGA if certain original graphics or merchandise are incorporated somehow, formerly Star Child Records, and now ADV, who has (God knows why) been awarded the honor of producing the film. It was announced about a year ago that Star Child would not be allowed in on the LAEM (and they seemed pissed), so the ties that bind are questionable. A query very similar to yours was raised many moons ago by... me, IIRC, about the original score. Star Child produced Sagisu's work and most (if not all) of the songs, and distributed all of it within Japan. (As I said, Geneon does it here.) The question raised when the dissnouncement () was made was whether or not it would be possible for the original music (Sagisu's themes) to be incorporated into the movie. That discussion was short lived, and I don't think it ever did reach a conclusion.

Another thing to consider are the contractual relationships among the various parties. I've heard speculation (or fuzzy actual knowledge) that the contract which put EoE under the smelly pits of Manga instead of in the sweaty palms of ADV has an expiration date. I've no real reason to believe that, but that's as much as I know.

You know who would probably know would be Carl, or even some of the goombas at the ANF. The bond between ownership and licensing is a black ocean for those outside of the biz.