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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?"
Also Kiki's Delivery Service will be out April 15.
The DVD will be out in three weeks. So for the price of two tickets, you can actually own it!
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?
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There's not a whole lot of kids stuff out now. You've got spring break everywhere. They should release it in 3000 theaters.
The mouse has a love hate relationship with the movie. They want the money it will make, but they don't want it to overshadow the in house animation.
Here's the press release from Disney...
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Yes, but Spirited Away isn't a Disney cartoon (its not even dubbed to English by Disney... Pixar was in charge of that) Its a Studio Ghibli animation directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
If you don't mind a show that isn't crammed with nonstop action, you might just like it. The pacing can be slow at times compared to the latest hollywood Blow Em Up, but there are still a number of action and suspense sequences.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Disney is just the distributor. Miyazaki-san is the brains behind this.
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.
I could do three pages of Way Important Stuff which Every Japanese Kid Over Five Already Knows But Gets Glossed Over.
I dragged a bunch of friends to see this during the first release. They left the movie shaking their heads in utter incomprehension. "But don't you see? It all makes sense!" OK. Maybe not.
j.
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.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Disney is in the unenviable position of submarining their own works here. In one corner, you have 'Lilo and Stitch', the film, depending on who you beleive, Disney was lobbying to win 'Best Animated Picture' vs. 'Spirited Away'.
Disney has typically treated its Miyazaki/Ghibli licenses just like every other kind non-in-house animation they acquire (Many DIC titles. First season Sailor Moon is a notable example). They'll sell it, but they will not spend adequate resources on it or promote it in any way that will compete with their own films.
They spent considerable effort creating excellent dubbs on Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, but simply will not promote those films in any way like they will their own releases. (I have yet to get a Kiki action figure at Burger King.)
'Spirited Away/Sen to Chihiro' is a true work of art. Disney knows it. Miyazaki knows it. The people who've seen it know it. It *deserved* to win BAP. By winning, however, it takes away from 'Lilo and Stitch'. By rereleasing 'Spirited Away', Disney is effectively submarining a possible 'Lilo and Stitch' rerelease. They're also forced to tacitly admit that Miyazaki and Studio Ghibi produces better stuff than they do.
By not re-releasing 'Spirited Away', Disney is in the even more awkward position of trying to explain why they're submarining a film that's won BAP simply because it's not their own work.
Congratulations Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli! I will be taking everyone I know and can get to go to the rerelease.
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Failed at the box office? What box office?
You know where I got to watch it? I watched it in a nearby university's 100 seat theater. This is the kind of coverage Disney gave the film: very little advertisement, very few showings. Is there even a "box office" for universities for it to fail at?
Even 800 theatres is nothing compared to what the real box office bombs open at.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The best part of the moviegoing experience is how they mop down the floor between showings with soda & butter 'flavouring'.
I love that.
I was lucky enough to get a private showing during the first run. Well, not really private, but there was no one else in the theatre. No one in town knew the movie was there. The print was so clean I think they had not even been turning the projector on. No, it wasn't an 'art house' theatre, but a real multiplex. Off course, there were no lobby cards, newspaper ads, or any other type of promotion.
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Movietickets.com, which I got to by going to AMCtheatres.com has times for it already listed on March 28th, and at my local theatre too! Tickets are available to buy right NOW. I'll be there this Friday.
Spirited Away didn't fail, it didn't get a fair run. Look at Treasure Planet...how AWFUL that movie was, and it was a media blitz from Disney. At least "Spirited" got a better shake than Princess Mononoke. We live in Los Angeles for crying out loud, and we had to drive an hour into Pasadena to an obscure arthouse theater and watch it sitting in folding chairs on a screen the size of a medium-sized in-home projection T.V. screen. MEDIUM-sized projection T.V. screen!
Disney really doesn't want the U.S. to suddenly get an uncontrollable craving for non-Disney-produced animation features. The only reason Ghibli has any ties to Disney at all is because Disney doesn't want anime to steamroll over them without them at least having a hand on the pressure-release valve.
No matter how good the anime feature is, if Disney releases it in the U.S., it's popularity will be governed and reduced by the hand of Eisner.
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.
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
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.
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