Forum - View topicAnime in movie theaters
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Iria51
 Posts: 138 Location: San Antonio, Tx |
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Akira was the first anime movie that I saw in a movie theater many years ago. It showed in an out-of-the-way arthouse theater that had about 50 seats. When I went with my friends, I seem to remember only seeing about 20 people there. I also saw Ghost in the Shell in theaters when it was released, and again it was in an arthouse theater with about 15 people there. I saw Princess Mononoke in a dinner theater of all places and there were about 5 people at that showing. When I saw Ghost in the Shell 2 it was the first time I had seen an anime film in a major theater, AMC, and again there were very few people there. I never got to see Spirited Away or Cowboy Bebop when they came but they only showed for about a week and then they were gone. There was little or no advertising that I saw, for any of these films here. Nothing in print nor on TV. Pokemon and Yugioh were the only anime that I can think of that have done well in domestic release, and that is mostly because they were aimed at kids and were part of a grown TV audience. Most other anime has been, and still is, relegated to arthouse theaters it seems. The question that I have is, what do you feel needs to be done to grow anime's presence in movie theaters. Is it even possible? Despite the success of Spirited Away I feel that the upcomming release of Appleseed will mostly be seen in arthouses by it's niche audience (and I am one of them) and will not get a wider distribution. Perhapse, despite the growing popularity of anime and manga, the general public is still not ready to see more mature or intelligent animation on the big screen? Maybe they never will. I hope that they do someday.
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Not going to happen. Anime is a lot more popular now than it used to be, but it's still very much a niche market, make no mistake about it, and I don't think we'll ever have a situation where a non-kiddy anime film in more than limited-wide release will be profitable. It's a nice, viable, profitable niche market on video, where the overhead is lower, but you'll never see anime films, excluding the merchandising franchise cartoons, coming in striking range of Pixar's or Dreamworks' or Nickelodeon's feature films.
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TMBounty_Hunter
Posts: 235 |
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the first time I've seen an anime movie in a movie theatre was a bit more then a year ago, during CNAnime 2003, there was a special presentation of Junkers Come Here. a very good movie. the other two times i got to watch anime in a movie theatre was during this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, and Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy. those were magnificent expirences. at $17.92CAD per movie, it was still damn worth it.
now i jsut wish i had a chance to see all the other great movie in a movie theatre. Akira, GITS, Eva D&R, EoE, Bebop movie, Escaflowne movie, Patlabor movie 3, Lupin castle of Cogliostro, i could go on forever |
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elniro
 Posts: 98 |
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I think the first anime film ever to be shown in UK is going to be "Howl's moving castle" or whatever. But i bet it'll be shown in those specialist cinemas which show a lot of asian films
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11502 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I agree with Tenchi, anime is still very niche, but also very successful within that scope. I was lucky enough to go see Cowboy Bebop the Movie in an arthouse theater at a college that was sort of near my old house.
I wasn't even a student, but they mistook me and my friend for them and we actually got in for a discount. 
At any rate, when we got in there, it was actually kind of packed, and I was pleased to know that so many other people out there really like anime. There were even a few of the movie-watchers giving chuckles and one or two word chitter-chatter during the movie to express how much they enjoyed some of the subtlties of the characters that a lot of anime fans can understand. It was quite an enjoyable experience and I would like to be able to do that again. But yeah, going back to the argument at hand, anime is still a bit under the radar, and it probably won't ever be as widely accepted enough to really make it a part of the normal cinema experience. Of course, a Miyazaki is probably the best chance, but I've still yet to see any of his movies yet... 
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Rozzer
 Posts: 344 Location: So Cali |
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Anime in movie theatres have always sounded like a good idea to me. Even though I do enjoy watching anime at my house, nothing really compares to that giant screen and amazing sound system. Although from my experience, like most you have already stated, it's either kind of packed or barely packed at all. You can pretty much see who's in your anime community, and also a good way to get some people to go and watch the movie and hopefully still be interested enough to want to seek other titles.
Unfortunately for myself, I've only seen Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away in the theatres. I don't see how anyone would want to watch a Pokemon or Yu-gi-oh movie, but whatever you're into I guess. I just hope they will continue to release more and more titles into theatres, I really enjoy them. |
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BoygetsfireD
 Posts: 475 Location: earth |
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you folks are lucky. the only anime in theaters here (that I know of) was pokemon, yu gi oh and Spirited Away.
Spirited Away seemed like it would be the best one, but I didn't get out to see it (and still haven't seen the whole thing) 
all of the theaters here are owned by the same company, so I don't think we'll be getting any variety anytime soon... and yes, I did see the 1st pokemon movie, but give me a break, I was in like 6th grade
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jsyxx
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Was the first anime movie in US theatres really Akira? Wasn't the really old Kimba the White Lion movie brought to the US? Or did that just show on tv?
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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I don't remember the details, but the first anime in US theatres were a small collection of Japanese animated films based on well-known fantasy tales that pre-date even Astro Boy. They were released both in Japanese and US theatres...and bombed here (I forget how well they did in Japan).
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halostryke
Posts: 26 |
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i live here in sunny LA and i have yet seen a theatre dedicated to anime
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radicaledward
 Posts: 776 |
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Quite being so negative about how anime wouldn't make it in a theater. Nation wide release - probably not - but for smaller major city releases (limited release) it would probably do fine. There are more factors at work than just "it is a niche market" - anime IMHO is not a niche market. When I walk into Suncoast, FYE, or any other chain DVD and music store and see full racks devoted to anime DVDs then I would say it is not a niche market. I don't know about some of you, but I still remember the days when you were lucky to see Ghost in the Shell on sale at larger of the Suncoast stores - and they generally carried everything.
The biggest obstacle for anime would be this - how would most of the US companies that hold the license agreements break into the theater market? The distribution system used is very well established right now and there is not much room for a "smaller" or "less well known" distributor to break into the market - and that is why anime is doing so badly in the theaters. True there have been some movies that should have done much better (Spirited Away should have done extremely well if Disney had marketed it properly), but how is, say, ADV going to get a movie on the big screen? First they would have to get it rated by the MPAA (can't show an unrated movie after all), they would have to market it to the theaters (who have no clue who this ADV character is), and then they would have to market it to the general public. You may notice that typically you will only see trailers for movies that are distributed by the same company as the one you are watching. So how would you get the word out that there as been an anime movie released on the big screen? As such you can see that alot of it has to do with internal business politics and just straight up trying to break into an established and regimented system of distribution. At this point I don't think it is so much that they don't think people would turn out - I think it is that they can't break into the theater system yet. |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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You can show an unrated movie all you want, and ADV is entering the marketplace for theatrical seriously right now. All you need is to hook up with a distributor. Bandai, Manga, Streamline, ADV have all had theatrical releases at some time or another. Small films go on a roadshow type circuit, there might be 5-10 prints and they get passed around the country. You see plenty of trailers on movies not from the same company, the real key is that thye're only going to put arthouse trailers on an arthouse film, so you're not going to see them in an AMC/Regal/whatever on Blade 3. It'll probably be 20 years before an anime non-kid film can go mainstream. In the meantime, be glad things have gotten as good as they have. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15681 |
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I personally feel that studios and distributors could release anime films in more prominent arthouse theaters, and not out-of-the-way places. Plus they need to work on marketing them to general audiences more effectively.
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Tenchi
Posts: 4561 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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It is very much a niche market, meaning there's enough of a critical mass of a few hundred thousand big-spending anime fans and maybe a million or so more casual fans who buy the stuff occasionally for most mainstream video retail and rental stores to carry the stuff but there isn't enough of a market for non-kiddy franchise films to do well in wide release nor is there enough of a market for adult-oriented anime to do well in primetime on the major broadcast networks. The days when you were lucky to see anime VHS tapes outside of a handful of comic book stores were the days when anime was underground, not niche like it is now. |
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Sword of Whedon
Posts: 683 |
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They do, but it's up to the arthouse to want to book the film, and many of them want nothing to do with anime. The prominent arthouses in Philly only booked Spirited Away, and they forgot to order the sub print(mostly because Disney didn't tell them it existed). They do lobby them, but only the more ecclectic places are going to book the films. |
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