Spirited Away Set for 800 Theatre Rerelease

Robotech_Master writes "According to the website of Jerry Beck, a 20-year-animation industry veteran and one of the co-founders of Streamline Animation, when Spirited Away won the Oscar, it also "won the right to be re-released to 800 theatres this Friday. Disney will be announcing plans to re-release the Japanese masterpiece in theatres later today." When I emailed Beck to ask him his source, he said it was someone within the Disney publicity department and it would be made public sometime today. According to Spirited Away's numbers page at Rotten Tomatoes, it peaked during its first run at 151 screens. Wonder how it'll do this time around?"

Comments

Will DVD sales hurt theater proceeds?

[wikthemighty]

I for one am more than happy to see that Spirited Away will be in theaters again, but will the fact that it's coming out on DVD in the states in April hurt ticket sales?

I think advertising is more important than screens

[sielwolf]

I think that having more theaters is nice... but they need to sell the movie first... to some audience. The Oscar is nice and all but I doubt there will be too much a correlation between it and increased sales unless it had won for Best Picture.

But the more important problem is the audience. Who is this for? Under 13? Teenagers? Adults? Are they going to show commercials during Saturday mornings between Pokemon and Digimon? Or is this after-school fare?

I still think the biggest problem is that Disney doesn't know what to do with these films. They don't fit into their standard G rating pipeline so the films end up showing on 100 screens and getting attended to by the film heads only. Too bad.

Re:Disney

[Moses Lawn]

While it tickles me pink that this wonderful movie is getting another big-screen release, I doubt it will do any better this time than it did last time.

Spirited Away is just too Japanese/Asian for middle-Americans to get.


Oh, I hope not. I'd really like to think that The Rest Of Us could appreciate it. True, it's full of Japanese cultural references, but the story is still the classic kid-and-friends-on-a-quest-to-get-home story. Think of it as a Japanese "Wizard of Oz".

There's always hope. After all, no one expected "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" to do anything, and it stuck around the theaters for a year or so. Then again, my rational self doubts it. I'm afraid you're right.

Re:Anyone else not such a fan? (my own repost)

[NeuroKoan]

Well, I wouldn't call myself a die hard anime fan (I can count the number of anime series/movies that I've enjoyed on my hands, with a few fingers to spare) and I really enjoyed Spirited Away.

People seem to confuse anime as a genre when it is really nothing more then a medium. I think that catches a few people off guard, in this movie and in other movies. As for this one, its not an "intelligent" anime, nor is it "goofy" anime. Its a cartoon (made in Japan so people call it an anime) made for children. Its supposed to be a magical fantasy, not a mind blowing epic.

If you went into this movie expecting to watch an anime (as a genre) then you wholly missed the point and I'm not suprised that you didn't like it. The film is animated and from Japan, but that in no way means you should lump it with such pieces as Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc.