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Spirited Away Still Has a Chance
Dean Siren writes "Disney chairman Richard W. Cook says that they've budgeted to market Spirited Away in up to 1,000 North American theaters, and if the Oscars endorse it as much as Metacritic has, Disney will launch it. They'll spend the same time and money promoting Spirited Away for Academy Awards as they will Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet. Cook hopes that it will win not only Best Animated Film, but get nominated for Best Picture, as Beauty and the Beast got in 1991. Thanks to Jack Mathews at New York Daily News for getting Cook to explain."
...market the actual thing.
this is sure to be better then the "Atlantis" stratedgy.... no wait, how about "The Lion King"....
i really hope to see in a theatre; i enjoyed watching it at home. the almost-naturalistic take on a love story and spirit world kept me interested enough to keep watching after i took a break halfway through.
oh wait, there's pizza to eat. i'll take a break half way through this post....
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
step 1: advertise
step 2: ???
step 3: profit!
So far they have failed at step 1, its exactly what happened to Mononoke all over again. This movie makes Country Bears laughable at best, why not advertise quality animations and get rid of these terrible terrible films. Oh well, so long as it comes out in DVD with both languages and subs I'll be happy in more than one way.
Hah hah hah! Are you on crack, son? Disney is a BUSINESS. These decisions are based on MAKING MONEY. Disney will release Spirited Away if they think they will make a significant RETURN ON INVESTMENT from doing so. Being nice to geeks doesn't even factor into the equation.
While I'm not a big fan of the Academy Awards and disagree with much of the way it works, I think a nomination and especially a win at the Oscars for an anime film will rocket anime into even more mainstream outlets. More anime on TV, more films, more professional dubs and subs, etc. I can't think of a better way for anime to become more accepted in the west than for Spirited Away to win an Oscar.
Disney has been trying to bury quality anime movies for a long time because they know how good they are. Mirimax was only able to release Princess Mononoke to a limited number of theaters due to pressure from Disney.
If word got out to the mainstream that animated movies from overseas could be both entertaining to children and thought provoking to adults, then it would force Disney to rework their entire development structure to change over and reinvent their formulated storylines and stereotyped characters.
The problem for Disney here is that "Spirited Away" has people talking all over the world and even they can't keep this one quiet. So in the spirit of a multi-national corporation crushing its competition; if you can't beat them, buy them.
That way they can show "Spirited Away" in a limited release, satisfy a few fans and wait for the buzz to die down. But it didn't work this time, so they will put more money into the release and hope this will still go away quietly.
But I think Disney is in for a real shock here.
I hate disney and the oscars as much as anything, this really has the potential to legitmize anime as being more than Squaresoft fanboy fodder. Honestly, I don't think any other distributor could've brought this fantastic, fantastic movies to as many screens. Both times I saw this in the theater, it was packed with families, something I've never, ever seen at an anime screening.
If this does well, maybe we'll finally get to see that Cowboy Bebop movie on the big screen after all.
Scott
Oh grow up. First go see the movie. Disney is simply distributing this movie in the US. What other studio has ever taken a chance on nationally releasing Japanese anime in theaters?? Okay so the Oscars don't always represent the absolute best but they do give some limited release movies the attention they deserve. Go see Spirited Away and tell Disney with your pocketbook that you want to see high quality and high art animation, not re-hashed drivel like Treasure Planet et. al.
You know, some of us Slashdot readers are OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE CHILDREN that would enjoy this movie... AND DO. I appreciated the info on the film for _at_least_ that reason.
And at 35, I hope I never become too "mature" to enjoy a really good kid's film in any genre.
Spirited Away is a gorgeous movie. Don't judge it by the distributor (Disney)...it can stand on its own. Disney made a very smart decision to back a film that, in terms of the quality, artfulness and sophistication of its animation, simply blows away most modern animated films.
I was a bit dubious when a friend of mine told me I had to go see it, but he wouldn't stop praising it. I'm glad I went. It is visually stunning and charmingly quirky in a way I would describe as "Alice in Wonderland, Japanese-style." Miyazaki has produced a superb piece of work.
If Microsoft started distributing free Debian installation CDs with some percentage of copies of Windows, for whatever reason, a lot of people (read: Linux fans) would associate Microsoft with goodness.
/the specific action/ which Microsoft took was good.
Those of them which were in a clearer state of mind at the time would decide that
This story is about a specific action Disney has taken - not Disney in general.
B&tB was a really decent story, up til the sell-out* conformist ending. Of course, the ending and overall flow was the same as the fairy tell, but the parts Disney added were supporting characters to add length- helpful servants and vile, closeminded peasants. This created a racial-discrimination subplot that concluded in an entirely unedifiying way.
The White Gaulic Catholics are the bad guys, because they attack the hero after judging him solely by his appearance. So how is the situation resolved? He changes his appearance to look just like the bigots who had shunned him.
What's the moral of the story kids? "If you're different than other people, try to change and blend in. Nobody likes a weirdo, and don't you want to be liked?"
A better, more courageous ending would've had the Beast miss his deadline, and still live happily without that last-minute miracle.
Shrek (an anti-Disney film in more blatant ways also) nicely reversed B&tB, by allowing the curse victim to decide that she was better off under the spell (superhuman strength trumps prettiness).
*Yes, I feel the painful redundancy of using "sell-out" in reference to a Disney movie.
Because Disney doesn't hold the merchandising rights to the Ghibli catalog, they will never promote these movies as they should be promoted. Remember: Disney gains nothing from the success of these movies, and loses nothing if they fail.
What the hell are you talking about? Disney is promoting the shit out of this film, running full page ads in Variety and Hollywood reporter, along with their OWN films (Lilo & Stitch & Treasure Planet), despite the strong possibility that competition from another film will pull Academy votes away from their two movies (Lilo was a hit & TP will be a big success tomorrow).
Last year Disney didn't even put Atlantis in the running-- no ads, no hype-- it wasn't even submitted for competition. Why? Because they didn't want to split the Monsters, Inc. vote, which they thought was the only thing that could stand a chance against Shrek.
e were the only ones in the audience. The print looked almost new, as if the theatre hadn't been bothering to run it to an empty house. Local promotion? There was only the simple one-line listing in the newspaper. There were NO posters, one-sheets, lobby cards, stand-ups, or anything in or around the theatre.
Are you actually complaining that the print looked great??! As far as posters go, you obviously aren't in LA, the most important city for building Oscar buzz. Here, one-sheets are plastered everywhere, there are full-sized billboards, and the movie has real exposure.
To sum up: Disney is burying this movie, just as they did with Mononoke.
They are NOT burying this movie. They could have easily bought and not released the film, if that's what they wanted to do. They are not only showing the movie but are heavily promoting in the trades, trying to build more world of mouth and make it a contender for the animation oscar. *IF* that happens, then they can expand to the 1000 theater version, but this is a classic "platform release" strategy-- start small, build word-of-mouth, and release wider as time goes on. It's worked for many many foreign films of which, like it or not, Spirited Away is obviously one.
From the original article:
Some readers suggested that Disney was burying the film because it's better than any of theirs. One said the studio simply doesn't know how to market a children's movie it isn't also merchandising.
Sound familiar? Did you just read that and decide to be -1 Redundant or what?
As someone eloquently said below:
Are you on crack, son? Disney is a BUSINESS. These decisions are based on MAKING MONEY. Disney will release Spirited Away if they think they will make a significant RETURN ON INVESTMENT from doing so.
They are NOT burying this movie. They are marketing it strongly to the people who can save the film-- not the public (who will see the ads and go "oh, it's another pokomon movie") but the American critics and Acadamy voters who can help the film build momentum.
Neither of them were ugly. Didn't you get it?
They were quite nice looking Ogres. It's all those humans that were ugly.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.