Forum - View topicWhy Miyazaki movies were sold miserably in America?
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Emil Scherbe
Posts: 49 |
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I looked at Box Office Mojo (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/)
to see how Miyazaki movies sold worldwide. Then I confirmed his movies were practically no existence as business in America. 2005 "Howl's Moving Castle" is currenlty ranked 11. American sales was 2.0% of worldwide sales. 2002 "Spirited Away" is ranked 16. American sales was 3.7% of worldwide sales. 1999 "Princess Mononoke" is ranked 28. American sales was 1.5% of worldwide sales. I would not ask his movies were how critically achieved but why rarely reached American general public. |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4558 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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They receive a level of promotion and distribution determined by how well Disney thinks they'll do at the box-office, where it's unlikely that the Miyazaki films would earn enough back to cover even the "P&A" (prints and advertising) cost of a "wide" release (2000+ screens). Anime is more popular in North America now than it used to be, but it's still very "niche", and the big American studios get the rights to anime films primarily to sell them on DVD, where the overhead costs are much lower than for a "wide" theatrical release.
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Emil Scherbe
Posts: 49 |
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"do not sell because do not sell"?
I can't figure out the reason "do not sell". |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4558 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Because anime films have two strikes against them in terms of appealing to the size of audience needed for an anime film to be profitable in domestic wide-release: they're animated and foreign.
The mass American moviegoing public (when viewed as a singular mass) generally does not care for animation beyond an extremely narrow band of comedy specifically intended to appeal to the tastes of the mass American moviegoing public. The mass American moviegoing public also does not tend to care much for foreign films. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of people in America who are open-minded enough to enjoy an anime film, just that there aren't likely enough people like that for an anime film not directly based on a kiddy merchandising franchise cartoon with a built-in audience like Pokémon to be profitable in wide-release. Or, at least, the studios will go after the safer money, which is to be made on DVD, not at the box-office. At least Disney put the Miyazaki films on around 4 times as many screens as Sony put Steamboy on or Dreamworks put Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 on, and there are many other films that didn't even get that. |
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Emil Scherbe
Posts: 49 |
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Thanks for your explanation.
Howl's was domestically sold 2 times than Star Wars Episode 3, 3 times than War of the Worlds. In America, SW3 and WotW were sold 4 times than Japan but Howl's were sold 1/50... I'm so disappointed... |
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Romuska
 Subscriber Posts: 818 |
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I agree. I happen to work in a video store and I can tell you, I'm surprised half of our customers are even able to find the store. I hate to say it but Americans tend to be, well, just plain stupid. I've had customers walk into the store thinking that they were in another store. I had one guy who gave me atittude because I had to explain to him that I can't read ever DVD for him to tell him weather it's subtitled or not and that he would just have to read the covers himself. I think too many people are too closed minded to watch foreign films. It's kind of sad when Princess Mononoke get's less advertising than Cinderalla II. |
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LeoKnight25
 Posts: 319 Location: Puyallup, WA |
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You also have to remember that Disney isn't going to outsell it self. What I mean by that is, that it'll promote it's own movies over foreign product that it's picked up for domestic distribution. As much as I dislike Disney, they're definitely not dumb. I think the reason they picked up Miyazaki's films to begin with was to take out some heavy competition. They probably realized that Miyazaki's movies were ten times better than the crap they were putting out so they buy out the competition. They own the distribution rights for all of his films in the US and Japan. Worldwide, I'm not sure but, seriously that's pretty shrewd business practice. |
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one3rd
 Posts: 1818 Location: アメリカ |
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They want to make money. They'd be stupid to ensure that an anime title sells less than one of their own. If a foreign title that they've licensed outsells a homemade title, then great. More money for Disney. They promote a title based on its projected sales, not based on how they want it to sell compared to something else. |
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silverwings
Posts: 55 |
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I do have a question, though. Outside of Pokemon, has an anime film HAD a wide release?
How do they know that it won't make money if no film has had a wide release to say otherwise? It would be one thing if a film was released normaly and then failed to make money. I don't see the logic in saying it won't make money (or won't make it back) on a wide release if there is no evidence to prove that point.. |
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coolGAL
Posts: 358 Location: Saskatoon Sk Canada |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4558 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Sorry, the fanboyish "WAAH! Disney is out to bury Ghibli!" conspiracy theory died the moment Disney pushed just as hard for Spirited Away to win the Oscar as it did Lilo & Stitch (which I still think is just as good as any Ghibli film made since the golden Kiki's Delivery Service/Totoro era). Not only does Disney not set out to bury its potential competitors, in the case of Pixar, it actually nurtured them from being a company that just produced CGI demo reels into being a viable competitor. And, if Disney really wanted to bury Ghibli, all they'd have to have done would have been to sublicense the films out to a much, much smaller company like ADV to ensure that no one outside of the fandom niche would ever see them.
The Ghibli films get limited releases because the potential domestic audience for them is limited. As for how they know that there is not the audience for a wide release without actually giving one of them a wide release, they likely look at various cultural indicators like anime video sales and the ratings for anime shows, which are high but not quite as high as anime fans with the blinders on would believe. The audience for anime is viable, but it hasn't yet reached the critical mass for things like theatrical wide releases and primetime network broadcasts to be something an entertainment conglomerate that plays things safe would consider. The profits from the DVD sales are "good enough", they aren't going to do anything too risky. A wide release of Howl might have been profitable, but it's more likely that it would have been a fizzle of Valiant-esque proportions (though, fortunately, they only distributed that one too, they didn't actually make it; still, I'd hate to explain their taking a bath on a wide release to shareholders). |
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ShellBullet
 Posts: 1051 Location: I hit things, with my fist. |
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But you're asking a company to take a gamble, and that's something most movie studios are never too fond of doing. Studios have taken gambles on anime in the past that did not pay off. Back in '99 when Miramax released Princess Mononoke they did there best to make the film a hit. They loaded the voice over with recognizable talent, and opened it on 160 screens, hoping it would become a sleeper hit. However, in six weeks it only raked in a little over $2 Million, not even covering Miramax's bottom line. The American public was by in large uninterested. Sadly, the general lack of enthusiasm for anime films cannot be entirely placed on the heads of the general public. I remember when Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door came to theater, when I asked the people in my anime club if they wanted to go see it the typical reaction was "no, I'll just torrent it and see it that way." With this attitude rampant among even the die-hard fans, what is a studio supposed to do? |
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Dilandau
 Posts: 525 Location: Tea House |
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I think is partly due to that most anime fans are high-school or university age kids with no money to begin with. Most otaku are collectors, so they want a version all their own, so they either illegally download a copy or they just buy the DVD. I personally wouldn't waste $10 on a cinema for a one time viewing. I'll wait till it comes out, and buy it for $15 on sale. And I think that is probably the general undestanding that the industry has of the fans. |
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Nani?
 Posts: 632 |
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"Cultural Considerations" also come to mind. I heard stories of some American audiences laughing at the "talking animals" in Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away suffered somewhat for the same reason, in mainstream American eyes. Both were very Shintoesqe. As an aside, I think this also affected the non-success of Final Fantasy:The Spirits Within .
Howl's Moving Castle was simply the weakest Miyazaki film to be released in American theaters. All the Best, Nani? |
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Mugen The Great
Posts: 189 |
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OK, I'll challenge both of your statements with one particular movie: Chicken Run. A foriegn animated movie with a distinctly British sense of humor. By your logic, it should have been a flop in America. And yet it made $106,834,564 at the US box office. If Dreamworks (a smaller company than Disney) could give it enough backing for it to be that successful, Disney could and should have done the same with Howl's Moving Castle. Admittedly, there is a pretty big difference between a British movie and a Japanese movie, but I don't see a movie as appealing as Howl flopping too terribly in wide release. Overall, I'd assume that Howl might have been able to make around $80-$90, which would be a decent gross and one of the most successful anime films out there. Given that more people have heard of the Earthsea books than Howl, if Disney could give Miyazaki's Earthsea movie a wide release it could probably make at least $100 million, generally the point where a movie can be considered an immense success. But if for some reason Disney still can't give any Miyazaki movie a wide release, I at least hope that WB can give the Naruto movie a wide release within the next few years.[/i] |
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