| "Disney announced today that the animated Studio Ghibli film, Howl's Moving Castle, the latest film from acclaimed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, will be getting a true wide release.
"We are thrilled to announce that fans of the gifted animator [Hayao] Miyazaki have nothing to fear, Howl's Moving Castle will be coming to a theatre near you," Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group president Nina Jacobson said at a press conference at Disney's worldwide headquarters in Burbank, California. "[Disney Theatrical] had a gaping hole in their summer schedule left after they pushed Chicken Little back to November and they needed a quality family film to fill that gap, so I suggested Howl's Moving Castle, which we were initially planning on running on just 700 screens at its widest, and they thought it was a great idea. I think they were kicking themselves that they hadn't thought of it before. It's wonderful corporate synergy for us, almost kismet." Jacobson then added, "If Pooh's Heffalump Movie and The Pacifier can play on 3000 screens, why not this? I think Howl's Moving Castle is a wonderful film which deserves to be seen by audiences of all ages."
This represents a significant change in strategy for the marketing of the Ghibli films in North America. Although the 2002 release of Miyazaki's Spirited Away, which won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2003, was considered a success, and was, by a significant margin, the most successful theatrical release of a serious Japanese anime film in the North American market (not including anime films tied-in to mass-merchandising cartoons like Pokémon), in real terms, it barely passed the $10 million mark. The initial release of the film played on only 151 screens at the widest. In comparison, The Incredibles, also distributed by Disney, opened on 3933 screens, and earned over $70 million on its opening weekend alone, for a domestic box office total of over $260 million.
After the Oscar win, Disney re-released the film on 714 screens, but the experiment at releasing it wider only earned an additional $3 million, with the British soccer comedy Bend it Like Beckham beating it on the initial weekend of re-release on just 1/6th the number of screens.
Many people in anime message forums on the Internet blamed the lackluster performance of the Ghibli films at the domestic box-office on Disney's failure to market the films as aggressively as it does its own productions like Lilo & Stitch. A Disney marketing executive who asked not to be named shed some light on this situation. "I used to think that the reason the Ghibli films did not do well with a wider audience was that there is not that much of an audience for serious animated films in the North American market, especially not foreign ones, and we marketed the films on a scale where we think it would be profitable, which is, like it or not, a limited release, as anime is a niche market. But SSJ7VegetaOwnsJ00 from the "Anime Roolz" forum is correct. 'hay di$ney, people will see theez films if u just markit them properly, as anime is so much better than that kiddy american cartoon s**t. its teh markiting, stoopid!' How true that is. Random teenage flamers on anime message forums really do know better how to market films than those of us in marketing here at Disney, what with our MBA's from highly-regarded business schools and our fancy book learning and our... erm... years of experience at marketing. The reason Americans fail to watch quality films is only because of a lack of marketing, as marketing can create an audience for anything. It has nothing to do with the tastes of the mass American public; it's not that Americans would really rather see a film that panders to their tastes, like The Pacifier, it's that we just don't tell them well enough about the quality alternatives like this foreign cartoon. Oh, SSJ7VegetaOwnsJ00, you have shown us the error of our ways!"
Howl's Moving Castle is based on a children's fantasy book by the Bristish author Diana Wynne Jones. The English cast includes Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, and Billy Crystal. It opens on June 10th." |
