Originally Posted By Anatole69 A friend from my Japanese class said to me tonight that he feels Disney has poorly promoted Miyazaki's films when they get their theatrical release in part because they don't want his films showing up their own movies. I'm not sure I completely agree, but I am interested to hear what your thoughts are on the success or failure of Disney in promoting the theatrical releases of Miyazaki's films in the United States. - Anatole
Originally Posted By mawnck Anime fans have been whining about lack of promotion since the first VHS's appeared on the market. "If only they'd promote these things right, then everybody in America would love them to pieces and a new era of Japanese world domination would be upon us." It's wishful thinking. The sad fact is, anime - even really, REALLY good anime - is a niche market, and most Americans who aren't in that niche would have to be hogtied to get them into a theater showing an anime flick. This conspiracy theory of your friend's is pure tinfoil hat stuff. Disney paid a lot of money for the rights to those movies. Disney agreed not to make any cuts in them, knowing full well that even the legendary "My Neighbor Totoro" had a problematic scene or two in it. Disney financed and executed the benchmark-quality dubbing of the movies, hiring such obscure voice actors as Anne Hathaway, Phil Hartman, Kirsten Dunst, Chloris Leachman, Michael Keaton, Elliot Gould, Billy Crystal, and LAUREN BACALL. Disney went all-out on their ad campaigns promoting both Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle for the Oscar, causing Lilo and Stitch to lose what in most years would've been a shoo-in. John Lasseter is best friends with Hayao Miyazaki, for crying out loud! There is no incentive for them to quash Studio Ghibli's movies, and less than no evidence that they have made any attempt to. The sad fact is, when Spirited Away was the talk of the country for winning its Oscar and it expanded to 280 (IIRC) screens with a full-scale TV campaign, it STILL played to empty theaters. And they theatrically released Howl's Moving Castle anyway. Your friend is just going to have to deal with the fact that he lives in a country that, for the most part, doesn't want anime, doesn't like anime, and is NOT going to give it a chance no matter how many commercials Disney runs pleading with them to. Disney has done FAR more to promote the Ghibli catalog than any major studio has ever done to promote ANY anime, theatrical or otherwise, before or since. But they aren't going to throw (much) good money after bad. They are not the NEA or the Japanese-American cultural center. AFAIK, they've lost a chunk money on every single Ghibli theatrical release, and all they whiny otaku in the western hemisphere are not going to convince them that they should have lost even more. Nor should they. The best way to promote these movies is to advertise enough so the fans know that they're out there, get them onto at least a couple screens in each major market, get them some awards, and then make for darn sure Target puts the DVDs in the flyer when they come out. And that's exactly what they've been doing.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 AFAIK Anime does much better on DVD sales than it does in the theater. The Miyazaki DVD's are well put together and I can only assume Disney does ok on their sales. I am guessing that Anime fans are much more willing to buy or rent the DVD than go to a theater to see the movie. With internet downloads now though, I would have to think that the DVD market for Anime must be falling rapidly. - Anatole
Originally Posted By mawnck >>AFAIK Anime does much better on DVD sales than it does in the theater.<< Anime seldom makes it to the theater in the US. If they want to qualify for the Oscars, they usually book a one-week qualifying run in some shabby little theater in LA. I don't know if DVD sales have taken that big a hit, but it seems like they would.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 ^^ Most films do better on DVD than in the theater, there is more money in sales than in ticket box office, so it would only stand to reason that Anime follows the same trend. Since the audience is smaller for Anime, I imagine that only films that are seen to have a crossover potential outside of Anime films are considered for a theatrical release, unless it is for oscar consideration. Yes I don't have hard numbers on what the market is Anime market has been like sales wise in the past couple of years, but I would guess internet downloads and the bad economy has probably had a very large impact. - Anatole
Originally Posted By alexbook >>Anime seldom makes it to the theater in the US. If they want to qualify for the Oscars, they usually book a one-week qualifying run in some shabby little theater in LA.<< Just for the heck of it, and because I'd rather poke around the web than do something useful, I went to Box Office Mojo. According to <a href="http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=anime.htm" target="_blank">http://boxofficemojo.com/genre...nime.htm</a>, only 11 anime films have ever done more than $1 million in U.S. box office, and 4 of those were Pokemon movies. As far as Ghibli movies: Spirited Away - $10.1M - 714 theaters Howl's Moving Castle - $4.7M - 202 theaters Princess Mononoke - $2.4M - 129 theaters That puts Spirited Away behind Pooh's Heffalump Movie and ahead of Teacher's Pet: The Movie.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 So princess Mononoke did about 10,000$ per screen, and Spirited Away did about 20,000 per screen for their entire run (really rough figures on my part). In a decent weekend, a Hollywood film will do about 10,000 per screen... so in three days a theater will make the same money that it will take a month to make with a sucessful Anime... and according to Box Office Mojo, only 5 Anime films or so have even made 10,000$ per screen. - Anatole
Originally Posted By Anatole69 I feel really lucky to live in San Francisco. Many of the movies that played on less than 10 screens played here in SF, and I have seen a few of them myself. Kind of sad to realize some really good movies never played outside of the major cities. Also Cowboy Bebop played on less than 20 screens, but averaged 50,000$ per screen. Pretty amazing. - Anatole
Originally Posted By SBSBelle22 I don't think we've ever gotten any of them on screens here in AZ. Or if we did I never heard about it. I wish they would put them at least on a small theater here, me and a few friends would definitely go see them
Originally Posted By Anatole69 I am surprised Miyazaki didn't play wide enough to be seen in AZ. Seems like they market Anime films for the East and West Coast and ignore all the other markets... maybe Chicago gets some, but I can't think of anywhere else in the midwestern states. I can't completely believe the boxoffice mojo list, though. It says Akira played in only two theaters, and Ghost in the Shell only played in 1. I worked at a Landmark theater when GITS was released, we did not earn half a million when we screened it, not even close. 15 Akira Stl. $553,171 2 $11,263 2 12/25/89 16 Ghost in the Shell Palm $515,905 1 $2,736 1 2/2/96 - Anatole
Originally Posted By alexbook >>I can't completely believe the boxoffice mojo list, though.<< Gasp! Are you saying there's stuff on the web that isn't accurate? ;-)
Originally Posted By ToonKirby I saw "Spirited Away" in Phoenix, and I know "Howl's Moving Castle" played there.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 Thanks, that is helpful to know. So they did get a decent release, I am guessing the box office wasn't very large though. - Anatole
Originally Posted By disney_beta Miyazaki's films just don't appeal to a broad American audience like Disney films to because they are made for a Japanese audience. Simple as that. Our cultures are different, and what will appeal to a Japanese person won't necessarily appeal to an American, and vice versa. I don't think its a question of who is better, Miyazaki or Walt. They each have their place in their respective cultures. But trying to say which one is better is like try to say whether action movies or comedy movies are better. They just aren't really comparable because they are so different.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 Thanks for sharing. I think there are some similarities between the cultures, or else Godzilla, sushi and pokeman would never have become popular here, or Michael Jackson, the Beatles and hip hop would never have become popular in Japan. Personally I think the answer is more complicated than saying it is due to cultural differences. - Anatole
Originally Posted By Anatole69 I just want to add that Miyazaki would agree about the Disney comparison being false, if I remember correctly he hates being compared to Disney. lol. - Anatole
Originally Posted By ToonKirby It doesn't help that they do the celebrity-filled voice cast for the "American versions", which, no matter how well they are done (and that's highly debatable), always seem to take away from the original artistic intent. For example, the first time I saw "Spirited Away" was the English dub and it left me a little cold. When I watched the original version on DVD, I was blown away by it. So (for me at least), that makes a big difference. So much so, that I waited to see "Howl's Moving Castle" on DVD (and loved it). And I will be waiting for "Ponyo" on DVD as well, especially since they cast Miley Cyrus' sister and the youngest Jonas Brother for the US release (I'm so not kidding). - kch
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Personally I think the answer is more complicated than saying it is due to cultural differences.<< Hai. Disney and Pixar are huge in Japan. I chalk it up to the typical American "anime is either Pokemon or porn" stereotype. And I don't care what Miyazaki says, his movies and Disney's CAN be compared. They aren't as different as he likes to pretend they are. If you've ever seen the French feature "The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird," you know that he has some VERY strong influences that ain't Asian. On a side note, I saw Azur and Asmar for the first time last night. WATCH IT. NOW.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 I hate to say it, but American mainstream audiences just don't want to watch a film with subtitles. As previously mentioned in the thread, I worked at an art house for a couple of years and on more than one ocassion had to refund someones ticket because they didn't realize the film was sub-titled. One guy said, "if I wanted to read, I would stay at home with a book." No kidding, he really said that. I think even the best dub is going to be inferior to the original, if only due to the fact they have to speak at the same speed as the original voice actors in order to match the moving of the lips on the animated film. This is going to comprimise the strength of the acting on some level. That film seems really unique. That one and that other French fantasy film that qualified for the oscars this year both seem really cool. Maybe it's just me but it seems like French animation has been on an upswing in the past few years. - Anatole
