If any Anime could make it...

[Weatherman]

Actually, Sailor Moon was targeted at girls ages 7-14, as the magazine it was in.




$85 million. After the initial anticipation and rare card promotion, many parents who took their kids to see it realized how convoluted that movie was. So after opening with $50 million the first 5 days, there were hardly any repeat viewings and earned only $35 million after the first week. And like with many other franchises (e.g. X-Files), the movie is usually when popularity peaks, so it's no surprise it was incrementally downhill for the following Pokemon movies.




I don't think it could open in time for The Incredibles because Disney would need time to adapt a script, pick name actors (as their M.O.), and get with their schedule and dub it.

Also, I don't think any anime movies that rely on knowledge of the TV series or previous works (e.g. Cowboy Bebop) could do well neither. Most people would not have seen the TV series beforehand and so won't appreciate the corresponding movie that much.

But most importantly, Japanese sensibilities differ from American sensibilities. For example Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within - the Japanese are big on environmentalism stuff since they live in an enclosed island where habitation is limited by nature, but America with its gas-guzzling SUVs and wide open spaces couldn't care less about that agenda. To be successful here, an anime film would need to sync with American sensibilities.

Thr Final Fantasy movie didn't do too hot in Japan either. It did better then it did here, but not by much. At best, I think it performed as well as the GinS movies, I think, or something close to that.

When I mentioned Howl's date, that's the Japanese date, though if Disney wanted to they could do an American release at the same time. They have to have acess to the scripts so they can do their casting and American laguage adaptions, so why not get cracking on it well ahead of time so they can get the movie out there? Unfortunately for Howl's, The Incredibles has that weekend pegges over here, though I would imagine we would we will see Howl's over here reasonably fast.

And you didn't have to see the Cowboy Bebop series to get the movie. You could have gone in cold and been able to at least enjoy it. Having seen the series would help though. So would getting a release outside of the "smaller then my living room TV" "arthouse" theatres and some decent promotion.

 

[Animelee]

I wonder why Pokémon has gotten more and more popular in Japan, which is totally opposite here. What makes most Japanese people love it, and what makes most North Americans dislike it?

 

[Elven Moon]

Besides Pokemon obviously, Spirited Away did pretty darn well. Besides those you can't really know what anime movie will do well next :/

 

[lostrune]

I wonder why Pokémon has gotten more and more popular in Japan, which is totally opposite here. What makes most Japanese people love it, and what makes most North Americans dislike it?

Because the Japanese like anything cute. Sociologists have dubbed it Japan's "kawaii culture." Anything cute would be continually bought up.

Americans get tired of something after awhile, even if it's cute. Though a couple of decades later, the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake are making a comeback, but it's for a new generation.

 

[Chris Wood]

It's hard to say really. It would have to be either very Disney-like or very hardcore. Spirited Away should have done great business with the Disney crowd, but even with an Oscar it only managed $10 million at the box office.

So maybe a very hardcore anime that makes it totally clear that it is NOT for kids. Something like Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust maybe. Of course it would never be able to do Shrek-like blockbuster numbers, but eventually it could be a strong cult hit like Kill Bill.

I don't think something like Lupin would cut it. I love Lupin myself, but the mix of cartoony and adult elements would be likely to alienate both the adult and family audiences.

 

[Duke]

It's hard to say really. It would have to be either very Disney-like or very hardcore. Spirited Away should have done great business with the Disney crowd, but even with an Oscar it only managed $10 million at the box office.

Considering that it was only released in about a fraction of theaters (even after the Oscar win), $10 million isn't too bad.

 

[Chris Wood]

Considering that it was only released in about a fraction of theaters (even after the Oscar win), $10 million isn't too bad.

I'm sure if it continued to do great business in the theaters that release would have been expanded further. But it didn't. Just because you release a film to more theaters is no guarantee it's going to make more money. No theater is going to want a film if the seats are barely half full.

Anyway, if you put Shrek in the same 700 theaters it would have made much more money.

 

[Duke]

Well, Shrek didn't start out in every theater (Hell, the biggest theater near me didn't get it until this weekend) either.

And it also has to do with the general American mindset (which was explained on PTI last week). Basically, in the mind of the average American, "If we didn't make it, we don't care about it."

 

[Majin_Megabyte]

I might get bashed by saying this. I think they should try release one of the Inuyasha movies in the nationwide theaters. Since the tv show is really a big hit.

 

[Chris Wood]

And it also has to do with the general American mindset (which was explained on PTI last week). Basically, in the mind of the average American, "If we didn't make it, we don't care about it."

I don't think that's really the issue. Heck, most of today's most popular animated TV shows are animated overseas.

It's true that if that if the movie feels very foreign then audiences may be turned off by it. The inherent strangeness and Japanese-ness of Spirited Away probably worked against it.

However, properties like Cowboy Bebop or Vampire Hunter are based on time honored science fiction templates that American audiences are very familiar with so their foreign origin shouldn't be an issue. Look at 28 Days Later. It was a low budget British film with no starpower, but it explored the zombie thriller genre that Americans readily embrace and it did very well at the box office for such a small film ($8 million budget/$45 million US box office).

The question is the promotion. The Final Fantasy movie was heavily promoted and had name recognition, yet performed rather weakly at the box office. I would say that film had a bland look to it, and maybe the story wasn't that great. What is needed is a Matrix of anime - a promotional blitz that promises something definitely mature (R rated) with cutting edge sci-fi and astounding visuals. Something like Akira, although it wouldn't hurt to be a bit more accessible and a bit less Japanese.

 

[Weatherman]

When I saw Spirited Away before the Oscar win in october 2002, the theatre I was at was packed. It looked like a complete sell out and it was a Sunday matinee showing, and that was without any kind of major promotion what so ever. The post-Accademy Award run would have done alot betetr if they had bothered to promote it at all. I saw the usual newspaper adds, but I only saw one TV commercial once during the evenign news in the whole 3 weeks it was out. Sprited Away could have easily done 30-40 million in the US if Disney had bothered to actually do some promotion work for it.


And just becuase all of the US Saturday morning 'toons were made by japanese companies doesn't mean they're "anime", since they were usually planed out by their US backers, or we just didn't know anything about the shows before they came over here, nor did we really care.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Howl's Moving Castle, obviously.

 

[Chris Wood]

Howl's Moving Castle, obviously.

Why will that do much better than Spirited Away though? It will probably enjoy a boost because some people know who Miyazaki is now, but it will still be hard pressed to hit $20 million.

 

[Duke]

I don't think that's really the issue. Heck, most of today's most popular animated TV shows are animated overseas.

They're animated over there, but they're written, storyboard, etc. over here.

 

[SpiritualRemain]

One thing that really should be mentioned about the performance of Spirited Away is the fact that the DVD was announced well ahead of the Oscars and that the DVD release itself was two and a half weeks after the reopening, so people could very easily wait for the DVD to come out and buy it instead of going to the theatres.

 

[True Noir]

I think Hoshi No Koe would be a great film to make it. It's got all the qualities of a great anime film.

 

[UberMonkey]

Let's see.. I saw Princess Mononoke, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Spirited Away, and the first Pokemon and Digimon films in theaters. Except for the last two, none of them were verey packed. Spirited Away was in my hometown for one weekend before it was dropped.

I really think if there was any anime film that were to be really successful at the U.S. Boxoffice, it'd either have to be a) a Ghibli film with a wide release and well advertised by Disney, or b) some insanely huge kid's property (i.e., Yu-Gi-Oh the movie). I have high hopes for Howl's Moving Castle, but then again, I won't be suprised if I'm one of only ten people in the theater when I see it.

 

[Duke]

Let's see.. I saw Princess Mononoke, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Spirited Away, and the first Pokemon and Digimon films in theaters. Except for the last two, none of them were verey packed. Spirited Away was in my hometown for one weekend before it was dropped.

I saw Spirited Away at this tiny theater in Philly, and while it wasn't packed, it was certainly crowded. I think 3/4 of the seats were filled.

Only other anime movies I've seen in theaters are Pokémon 1-5.

 

[Weatherman]

I saw Spirited Away at this tiny theater in Philly, and while it wasn't packed, it was certainly crowded. I think 3/4 of the seats were filled.

Only other anime movies I've seen in theaters are Pokémon 1-5.

The screen I saw SW was, I belive, the 3rd biggest commercial screen in D.C. after The Uptown and The Cinema single screen theatres. I think it was around 350 or so seats, so it was good sized cowd. Everyone loved it too. Alot of families and the like there.