Forum - View topicNEWS: Steamboy Performs Poorly at Box Office
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GATSU
Posts: 15686 |
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Jiji: What's a hit in Japan isn't a guaranteed hit in the U.S., and vice versa. (See Detective Conan as a prime example.) Also, looking through Box Office Mojo's archives, I noticed that Steamboy had a higher opening than both Metropolis and Akira. So it could still have strong legs.
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Necros Antiquor
 Posts: 571 Location: Funny in a car crash sort of way |
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Keep in mind that back then, anime was virtually unknown to the mainstream, in addition to many people considering any form of animation just for kids. In this day and age, most people have heard of anime or anime-style and it's starting to become quite popular to integrate some reference to it in many different animated shows. I'd hope that with the greater recognition of anime compared to years ago when Akira came out that there would be a bigger box office return, or else something would be wrong. |
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LordByronius
ANN Columnist
 Posts: 861 Location: Philippe for America! He is five. |
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As Gatsu pointed out, Steamboy beat Metropolis' opening.
And looking at the B.O. of recent limited-release anime, it seems like the glass ceiling is a cool million dollars. Bebop made it there, Innocence did, Metropolis almost, and from there everything drops off rediculously. Steamboy's opening weekend beat out the total grosses of Escaflowne, Tokyo Godfathers, Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, and others. These things are, sadly, merely nothing more than a 35mm advertisement for the DVDs. I suspect the DVD will probably be out by early summer. Steamboy's "failure" at the box-office is a pretty presumptuous thing. Being beaten by GitS2 is no shame: GitS2 had the benefit of being called GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 so people obviously could easily tell the connection between the original Ghost in the Shell. If Steamboy were actually called AKIRA 2 I imagine there'd have been a different reception. And to whomever said "it looks like a steam-ing pile of crap": go away, please. |
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TMBounty_Hunter
Posts: 235 |
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seconded
Escaflowne movie had a theatrical release?! when?! i would have killed to see it in a theatre. i haven't heard a word of it being in theatres. probobly shows how much anime is promoted here.... |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11506 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I think it had a worldwide release sometime in 2000. If you have the Ultimate Edition set the extras should have footage from the L.A. screening as well as some very poignant interviews from the Japanese cast and crew, which were key in changing my liking of the movie  (from not liking it to liking it a lot).
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I saw Escaflowne on the big screen in July 2001, but it was at a film festival.
And I forgot nearly everything that happened as soon as I left the theatre. |
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AstroNerdBoy
 Posts: 413 Location: Denver, CO |
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You know there are many limited release titles for which I see ads for in Denver. Never saw one for Steamboy and they wonder why it performed so poorly.
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The Winking Samurai
Posts: 82 |
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[quote="Wyvern"]All joking aside, just because there's an anime movie in theaters doesen't mean we all have some high moral obligation to go see it even if we don't want to. If Sony wants my money, they must first provide me with something I am willing to pay for. If they don't do that, they don't get my money. That's not being stingy-that's called commerce, and it's been going on way longer than there's been anime. If the uncut subbed versian turns up in my area (doubtful) I'll be first in line to see it. THAT'S how you send them a message-by helping the unedited versian do much better than expected.[/quote]
I agree with you that just because it's anime doesn't mean you are required as an anime fan to go see it, or even to like it, for that matter. What I was was trying to say was that certain Otaku have this really annoying stance that Americans pervert anime, even when it's a simple unedited dub. Do you really think that Japanese moviegoers watch our movies in english? Of course not! They watch them dubbed in their native language, as everybody has since dubbing was invented. This "true language" crap annoys me to no end. I understand your frustration with having a movie cut down, but American moviemakers are really funny about long-running movies. So much so that sometimes significant plotpoints are skimmed over to get a movie under that "just over 2 hours-long" glass ceiling. But if you think that not spending your money to see it is sending the messege that you want the 12 minutes back, you are very wrong. Write them a letter or something. Boycotting the movie is not the answer in this situation. BTW, your satirical rant was pretty enjoyable. |
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Ganryu
Posts: 106 |
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Hahahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHA... As a swedish citizen i am apalled by dubbing. No movie here, except those targetting children, is dubbed. Ever. I could go so far as to say that, in fact, i know no one who would actually go and watch a dubbed movie. We even had a discussion here in my dorm a few weeks ago where the conclusion was that dubs suck (me being the only anime fan of the group), and that those other europeans (germans, french) are a bit crazy for dubbing everything. Yes, i'm sure that the japanese are as crazy when it comes to dubbing as the germans and french, but it's also a bit surprising considering how "popular" english seems to be over there. I mean just watch any random anime and they'll be using english words left and right. |
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GhostWing
Posts: 6 |
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The dubbing thing doesn't bug me as much as it used to. They got some big name talent to do the primary roles and it wasn't played too over the top.
As for the movie doing "poorly", it's all weird. I got to see Steamboy Sunday afternoon at the Empire 25 in NYC and the theatre was fairly packed. I'm glad I didn't know the film was 'cut' because I would've been thinking about it throughout the movie. It wouldn't have mattered that much because I care more about cut/uncut and dub/sub when I actually buy the DVD. Overall, not a bad dub. Had a cool premise all around, but the ending wasn't as strong as "Metropolis". They probably should've slipped in a Ray Charles song at this movie's climax too 
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Sam.:
 Posts: 136 Location: ANN WebSite. |
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I was wondering if anyone knows the overall Box Office Performance of Steamboy? The news post on the main page only gives the weekend box office figures. I want to know how the movie has done in the past 2 weeks. Can anyone help?
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Tenchi
Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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The "estimates" for this weekend won't be out at BoxOfficeMojo.com until tomorrow evening, and we may have to wait until the "actuals" to see the performance of a limited release film like Steamboy, though, according to the theatre count page, Steamboy is playing "wider" this weekend...
...by about seven screens. Last edited by Tenchi on Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:43 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TMBounty_Hunter
Posts: 235 |
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Paramount Theatre in Toronoto already stopped showing it......bastards
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Tenchi
Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I guess not enough people in Toronto were showing up for enough of the showings for it to be worth holding it over another week at the Paramount. Keep in mind that the Paramount-branded Famous Players theatres are the pinnacle of the Famous Players chain, huge screens in the city centres, where the real estate is expensive, and they'd need a lot more people, on average, to show up for each screening to turn a profit than your average suburban shopping mall multiplex, where the rent is usually relatively cheaper than downtown and the number of staff is a small fraction of the number of staff at a Paramount theatre.
So the problem is either that not enough anime fans in Toronto showed up for the film to be worth holding over, or that there simply aren't enough teenage and adult anime fans in Toronto for screenings of anime films like this at non-arthouse venues to be profitable. I know that the screening at TIFF was packed, but that's a single showing at a festival where people came from all around to see it. When you have around 25 regular non-festival showings on a screen in a week, that does tend to dilute per-screening demand a bit. |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Yeah, I was right. Steamboy doesn't even show up in this weekend's Weekend Estimate chart, so we have to wait for the "actuals".
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