Forum - View topicWhy do Americans hate/dislike Hayao Miyazaki's movies?
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4 Next |
| Author | Message | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
David.Seth
 Posts: 453 Location: near SF |
|
|||||||||
|
EDIT: ok, so when I mean hate, i mean that Americans don't seem to be interested in his work. Can't take the title too literally. I know his movies are critically acclaimed here in the states. But box office revenue suck, and because that is a good reflection of American's interest in movies, I'm basing my lil rant on that.
I know Hayao Miyazaki's movies don't do well in America, but why is that? I was looking at some numbers and this is how the box office looks for his last 3 movies to be theatrically realesed here: Princess Mononoke: 2.2 million Spirited Away 10 million Howl's Moving Castle 4.7 million What is this? Is this the best an American audience can do? What stopped these movies from making 10 times that amount? Hoodwinked made 51.8 million dollars! Hoodwinked! If that piece of shiza can make over 50 mill, then why can't Miyazaki's films? Is it because of Disney's poor marketing? Does it look too "foreign" to Americans? You would think that, since Spirited Away made 10, that Howl's would've made at least more. but no, it made less. I know there isn't any easy answer to this. I guess this mini rant started after seeing the french trailer for Ponyo. Now not only do I want to see this on the big screen, but I want to see it succeed. At first I was going to download it, but decided that a sub par cam vid would not do it any justice and probably would cheat me out of a great movie going experience. I've seen Howl's Moving Castle as well as Spirited Away in the theater. Both times there was only about 10 or 20 people total in the theater. Both on a friday night 
Last edited by David.Seth on Fri May 08, 2009 4:03 am; edited 4 times in total |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
penguintruth
 Posts: 8502 Location: Penguinopolis |
|
|||||||||
|
Hayao Miyazaki is probably the best known Japanese animation figure known in America and his movies do better here critically than any other Japanese animation does. I think, considering that anime is foreign cartoons, and anime is seen as simply a novelty here in the U.S., that's doing pretty well.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
David.Seth
Posts: 453 Location: near SF |
|
|||||||||
|
@ penguintruth
Yea, I know that his films do better than any other anime that gets released. But its being backed by Disney, and they pay good money to get A-list stars to dub it, why not just spend a few extra dollars in promoting the movie so it will give a better return? And why do American's avoid anime, especially these great family films? I just looked it up and the computer animated atrocity known as Doogal made more than Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle combined!!!! I just don't see the justice. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
|||||||||
|
America doesn't hate Hayao Miyazaki. The critics by and large do not hate him, the viewing audience do not hate him. It's just that films are expensive beasts to not only make but to advertise for as well. Especially when you consider that animation is still primarily regarded in the United States and other countries as being mainly for children. It just doesn't make sense to risk your movie - one that might have turned a profit already - on advertising for a market that in all likelihood will lose you money if you distribute too widely. I mean sure, Howl's Moving Castle may have only earned only US$4.7m in the United States, but how many screens did it show on? I'd wager not many. Per screen, the money generated may rival or exceed Hoodwinked. You've got to look past the box-office revenue; it doesn't tell you the whole story.
Doogal made less than US$27m worldwide, whereas Howl's Moving Castle made US$235m worldwide. Just remember that. Americans are rather silly people; this is not controversial, it is stated fact. What do they know about what is good? Edit: according to Boxofficemojo, Doogal averaged US$1,555 per screen, whereas Howl's Moving Castle averaged US$11,888 per screen. Hardly the flop you are so passionately claiming. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Some Guy
 Posts: 135 |
|
|||||||||
|
Well his films have been nominated twice and in one case won best animated feature at the academy awards...
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
David.Seth
Posts: 453 Location: near SF |
|
|||||||||
Which makes it even more confusing why these movies fail. If parents are willing to take their kids to some crap fest Shrek 8, why not Spirited Away? Animation is expensive, but these movies are already made. Disney does not have to spend any money in production (except the dubbing). So why can't they do the toy lines or at least put up a few commercials like for their own movies. I only saw 2 commercials for Spirited Away when it was in theaters. I can understand why movies like Persepolis and waltz with bashir dont do well in America since they are far from being kid friendly. But a well made family film that Disney only has to promote and distribute? There shouldn't be any excuse. I bet if they put in the same marketing effort as say Home on the Range, they would get the same return as well (and that without having to make the movie)
I didn't even think of that. good point.
Ah, it did make a lot more per screen than Doogal, which does somewhat restore my faith in my fellow citizens. Thanks for pointing this out again. I did go to box office mojo for my stats, but I guess I wasn't interpreting the data right. But now it makes me even madder. Why would the Weinstein Company, which doesn't have the name recognition as Disney, be willing to put Doogal out out on over 2000 screens, while Disney in its infinite wisdom, only put it Howl on 202? I just don't get what Disney is thinking
Yeah, thankfully film critics more or less appreciate his work. But its the general public that I'm referring too. |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Kruszer
 Posts: 7994 Location: Minnesota, USA |
|
|||||||||
|
Because cartoons are for kids. That is the view of the average American (who is stupid). Animation doesn't do well unless it's bright, colorful, and full of comedy. Even if we could make a serious work of animated fiction to save our lives, only the animation buffs would watch it and it would earn less than one of Miyhazaki's films.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
|
|||||||||
Because if you use an American cartoon character instead of a Miyazaki's, how would you expect others would even care for his movies? |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Analog_Now
 Posts: 211 Location: Montréal, Québec |
|
|||||||||
|
Well I'm not American but I'd probably say because it doesn't show in many theatres and they'll probably see the preview of the movie or something and treat it like it's another cartoon. Which they are not.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
|
|||||||||
|
It's not hate, it's indifference. Animated films in general aren't really on anyone's radar in the US unless their made by Disney or Pixar, and those owe much to name recognition. Animated films get no attention because they tend to be associated with G-rated kiddy fair and everyone knows that G-rated kiddy fair is so innocuous and insipid that it's barely even entertaining for the target audience, much less people who can speak in full sentences.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
David.Seth
Posts: 453 Location: near SF |
|
|||||||||
While you guys are pretty much right on, I still think it all falls back on name recognition. You know, I realize that there have been many animated movies that have come out over the years. Some were good, and some were bad. But the main reason one of those movies did well or not usually was due to the films promotion and Name recognition. Lets look at the year 1999 for an example. A few animated movies came out that year, including Warner Brothers The Iron Giant. Despite the Iron Giant getting a lot of praise and recognition from critics, it tanked at the box office (mostly due to poor promotion and just because it isn't Disney). Actually, most animated movies not made by Disney or Dream Works suffers from this fate. So this supports the idea that most Americans will flock to a Disney movie, no matter how crappy it is (Home On the Range), but give them an animated movie from a different studio, and it will fail (with few exceptions, such as An American Tail). So wouldn't it make sense that if Disney put in half the effort to promote Ponyo as they did with Home on the Range (commercials, toys, McDonald's, etc) that they would get a rather huge return on this film? Making 50 million on a film that was already made seems like a no-brainer. I know Princess Mononoke was pg-13, and Spirited Away might have been too much for the little ones, But Howl's Moving Castle, and (hopefully) Ponyo seem like the perfect movies to get kids into a theater to see a Miyazaki flick. Come on Disney, why don't you try this time? |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
LuckySeven
 Posts: 587 Location: Georgia, USA |
|
|||||||||
|
I think you also have to consider that none of the films the original poster mentioned got a wide release in theaters either. I remember back when Princess Mononoke hit theaters around here, it was only around for like 10 days at our AmStar 16 before it got replaced by Half Baked I believe. And even then the only reason I knew it was running locally at all was a crappy little ad in the local newspaper. There were no TV ads or any other sort of promotion besides that very tiny little advertisment in the newspaper. And that was only on the first day. After than the only indication that it was still running was the actual movie listings itself. So in that instance I can't totally blame it on American audiences. How do you expect people to even want to go see a movie when they may not even know its actually out in theaters?
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2175 |
|
|||||||||
|
There is more than just box office revenue to look at. Spirited Away's largest release was 714 theaters. In comparison, the largest release for the Pokemon film was over 3,000 theaters. Anime in the US actually does pretty decent when you give it a real deal release. Even when it's a joke release like a Miyazaki film, it's per theater pull is pretty much average or better than normal.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
draco_nite
Posts: 29 |
|
|||||||||
|
IIRC, those films all won Oscars for animation.
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
|
|||||||||
This was what I was going to get to as well, it's not released country wide like some of these horrible CGI movies coming out the horrible CGI movie factory are. They're usually released only in major cities (and usually not ones near me) as well. The other thing is that when I went to the movie with my friend to see Wall*E and Ratatouille, I always notice the kid's reactions during the previews, and that is usually because they are screaming at about half lung capacity to their parents at every preview with a fart joke or fluffy CGI character in it, immediately begging their parents that they must see it when it comes out. Part of the thing about animated and CGI films is that, at least from what I've seen, it's usually the kids who are the initiators of seeing the movies that look like they're for kids. If all of their friends are going to see Hoodwinked because Patrick Warbutron is doing a voice in it and there was some lame humor in the preview that appealed to them and if they are capable of annoying their parents to the point of seeing it, they'll do it. I don't mean to say that only kids are seeing things like Wall*E, I'm 20 and I certainly saw it without a younger relative chained to me, but from what I saw, the theater was largely kids under 10 and their parents when I saw Coraline, and that time I was stupid enough to let my normal movie going friend convince me to see Bolt with her (which had all the un-appeal of Miley Cyrus for me, not a bad movie, but that was a waste of money). I simply don't think that there's good enough market demand to warrant large scale releases on some of these movies (sure, Pokemon was an exception, I saw that in theaters too honestly, but a long time ago. And I got a free Pokemon card with it!), or due to the perception of anime=more children's cartoons in America to those not in the know and then the anime not being CGI fests that appeal to American children whose parents have disposable income prevents people who aren't already anime fans or dragged along friends of anime fans to want to see them. I think it's partially ignorance that a) these movies are even out and b) they're mistaken as kid only movies by both parents and kids who simply aren't interested and not as something that the whole family or only older people could actually enjoy. Not to mention that these movies really don't seem to have any major advertising (maybe they do in the city that they're airing in, I dunno, but they certainly don't outside of said cities, except maybe on the internet). |
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group