| 1. | (38 posts) | "Spirited Away" in North America |
| 2. | (10 posts) | Possible "Spirited Away" MPAA Rating |
| 3. | (6 posts) | MY CREZZY PLAN |
We looked at 34 posts by 73 different contributors.
It's coming. . . and it ate up all threads this week.
The other shoe dropped this week with Disney picking up the North American rights for "Spirited Away". Details of the arrangement are located on this page. Slithy Tove didn't like the news, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!. . .
So. We're going to see a hurried-up dub, with whatever acting talent they can throw together in a month or so, not enough time for adequate
marketing... anyone want to bet on another flop in theaters?
I don't know if the writer knows what he's talking about, but if this is really Disney's thinking... OMG, they're clueless.
After that sunny outlook report, Marc Hairston wrote, "I'll bet against a flop. If Lasseter is overseeing the dub, it will be good (see my previous posting). Pixar has a better track record of late and Lasseter is a Miyazaki fan from waaayyy back. I would never have dared to hope that Disney would ever pick someone so perfect to oversee the project. As far as the marketing goes, Mononoke was not a kids' movie and they just couldn't come up with a marketing campaign that worked. There was nothing else like it for them to use for experience. OTOH, Spirited Away *is* a kids film. Disney has the marketing of *that* down to a science. This one is going to be *much* easier to get folks to come see. And summer is the perfect time for a kids film. Okay, that doesn't guarantee mega-hit status, but $2.3 million is going to be real easy to beat. If they only manage to do middling well (say Tigger Movie level, around $30 million box office) they'll be doing fine and if it goes above that, they'll have a real hit on their hands and there will be all sorts of free press coverage about how "Japanese animation finally catches on in the US"."
Sharon Westfall wondered, "Does Disney have an animated movie coming out this Summer to compete with Spirited?"
Russell Watanabe replied with this list:
David Mankins wrote, "It also means they'll be able to sprinkle a little Pixar-dust onto their marketing, linking _Sprited Away_ to _Toy Story_ and _A Bug's Life_ in a way that just might fill a few theaters on its own."
Deborah Goldsmith cautioned, "Let's be careful. John Lasseter, as an individual, is named as a creative consultant. That doesn't mean that Pixar, as a company, is involved, except through association. Pixar is an independent company from Disney, and Disney can't use Pixar's name without their permission. That's not to say it won't happen, but naming Lasseter as a creative consultant does not mean it happens automatically."
bob (yes, that bob; I think) jumped on the subtitling bandwagon, "i understand its a theatrical release and PM had good voices, but that took a lot of time into the making for the U.S. release. and "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" was a subb and it did great, and ppl liked the idea that it was in its original language and voices."
Not the same according to Chris Meadows, "Crouching Tiger was aimed at adults, who could be expected to bother to read the subtitles.
Spirited Away is aimed at kids. Many of whom don't read all that well.
Steve Underwood added, "Spot on. Also, Crouching Tiger is no model that an Asian film of an Asian story can do well in the west. Although made in Mandarin, it is a Hollywood movie, and most Asian people see it as such. In fact, most Asians find it rather "foreign". In that sense Crouch Tiger is more like Disney's Mulan - an American film of an Asian tale."
Some hindsight anaylsis from Mark Mohrfield, "Hopefully audiences will still be willing to give it a try and it will be enough of a success for Disney to release the other Miyazaki films. But if I were the one making the decisions, I'd have theatrically released Kiki or Totoro before SA. Just because they're older doesn't mean that they'd draw any less of an audience than SA in america, where after all, these films have never been seen by a wide audience and are all equally new."
Chris replied, "Spirited Away has been in the news a lot recently, for its record-breaking performance in Japan. When have Kiki and Totoro been in the news? Might as well use the free recent publicity to their advantage.
Besides, there's a bit of psychological imperative involved here. I think that a lot of average viewers will be more inclined to see a
recent movie as something worth watching, just because it's the newest thing. A ten-year-old movie will have a bit of "well if it's so good, why didn't they release it sooner?" to overcome.
Another angle from Sharon, "Also, Kiki's already gotten regular airplay on the Disney Channel, and both Kiki and Totoro has been available on video for quite some time now. The BO numbers would be skewed because people who own the video or have already seen Kiki on tv might not go to see it in theaters."
Marc argued, "On the former, I don't think too many people in North America are aware of SA's Japanese box office performance, or would care about it if they did know. And the ten-year-old in the latter example is probably the last person who would care about the movies' age."
More wandering at this junction from Sharon, "Miyazaki's films are timeless. I wish they didn't fiddle with Laputa's soundtrack, I hope they don't do the same to Nausicaa's. I think they do too much fiddling and hopefully they realized that when they bombed on PM. . . I think spending too much time (= money) will degenerate the profit (= success) of the release, and thus will cause reluctance to release other films."
Chris objected, "Mononoke was hardly "fiddled with" at all. They dubbed it, they changed a couple of the songs from Japanese to English, they changed the text at the beginning to a narration, but other than that, it's largely as it was. I fail to see how PM's bombing could possibly have anything to do with fiddling."
A rambling reply from Alex Ingram, "It's terribly simple, the die hard anime fan can be terribly stubborn, the number of friends of mine who refused to go and see Mononoke at the Filmhouse until they knew it was going to be subbed. . . If the conversion is at least supervised and/or directed by the original director, then I might be happy, but it is not seeing the same film to see it with different songs, different actors and different cutting.
I think Ghibli were far too lenient on Disney with Mononoke, maybe America doesn't have the market for subtitled features, but the UK/Europe does. . . I would have significant issues with going to see Spirited Away dubbed as the first viewing, but if it really would be the only way to see it, I would see it dubbed, but I doubt I would go multiple times. Especially if the dub is American, as I could almost stomach a well organised British dub if Pathe were to go down that route, though I guess that if they are sensible, they'll send a subtitled print round the art house circuit, and consider a dub for the end of the year.
Hanno Mueller wrote, "Excuse me? Why? Ghibli seems to be one of the toughest partners Disney ever had and they seem to have almost absolute control over the way Disney deals with their material, content-wise. . . I can't see that Mononoke was - in any way - disneyfied by Disney. . . I'm a little bit afraid about what they did to Castle in the Sky (haven't seen the dub yet), where they apparently took more liberties. But the US Mononoke was 100% faithful to the original material - the nitpicking about some small aspects of the dub I still see as nits, but not as *major* faults. . .
In Germany, a major market for cinema, all foreign movies releases are dubbed. It's usually done very well and Germany's Mononoke had a very good dub, with the voice actors actually doing a better job than the US version.
I do understand that your problems with American voices, though. I'd have problems with a dubbed animation that features the distinct accent of a Swiss or Bavarian voice actors, too.
Sharon got here word in, "They took a lot of time rescripting, finding big name artists (remember Puff Daddy?) test screening, redubbing, etc. etc. on a film they thought was going to be phenomenally sucessful. All of that took time and money, that didn't pay off and ended up probably being a huge embarrassment to the execs that backed the film, and maybe even the Tokuma/Ghibli people who probably wouldn't allow anything less, for such an important treasure."
Mark Yates wrote, "I don't think they really fiddled with anything that much at all. Actually the dub was incredibly faithful. I've seen the dvd with both sub and dub and they match quite well. . . More problems being that to american 15-25's (the bulk of the audience) they won't go to see animation at the cinema unless it's CG, and then it's a bit more hip and cool."
More rambling from Lee Johnson, "Anime fans *are* stubborn. Hell, i would *never* see a film dubbed unless there was no chance of me seeing it subtitled in the foreseeable future. Not even for Ghibli. No one. . .
These films are always going to succeed as small "arthouse" releases because a market for them already exist there. The only way they can break out of this market to become successful as larger box office takers (i.e. shown at multiplex cinemas nation-wide) is if the movie press is saturated with information about the films and the films receive critical praise. However, is this going to happen to an animated film? A Japanese animated film? A subtitled Japanese animated film? The last time that happened was over ten years ago, and people still claim that film is the be-all-and-end-all of Japanese animation.
Michael Rieper outlined the current financial troubles of Disney and wrote, "The way I see it this turn out two ways for our concerns:
A) Sen is labeled too much of a gamble given the underperformance of "Princess Mononoke" and too "eclectic" (to quote the article), and shelved.
B) Sen and it's Golden Bear performance could be viewed as a low-risk, low budget (<$5-10 million?) family film ala "Snow Dogs", which would bode well for us. . .
Could "Sen" fit the low-risk, high-return model, or is it just simply an art house film for us anime folk?
After a comment about the juxtoposition of "Spirited Away" and "Snow Dogs" (can you imagine that double-feature?), I queried, "For viewers of the film: What rating (G, PG, PG-13) do you think the film will receive?"
Big reply from Robin Casady, "It all depends on the Disney people were thinking when the bought the USA rights, and what they are thinking now. Perhaps it is part of a Faster, Cheaper, Better strategy after NASA. . .
If they see Spirited Away as a modest project -- and expect the kind of results they saw with Mononoke -- it could mean they found a practical way to bring the Ghibli films to the USA and still make money on them.
If they expect Spirited Away to be a mega-hit as a family film, they could repeat the mistakes they made with Mononoke. If they think Mononoke flopped because was too violent for kids, they may be expecting too much from Spirited Away. Mononoke was too Japanese for the USA, and I hear that Spirited Away is as well. . .
They may be looking at handling Spirited Away more like their TV movies than like Atlantis. If they do it well, they might make money at it. A profit with Spirited Away might help get the other Ghibli films released.
John Jenkins replied, "It straddles the G/PG line IMHO. On the whole, it's fairly innocuous, but there *are* some moments that will likely scare younger children or at the least disturb them. . . I wouldn't hesitate taking my seven-year-old to it, but I could see that some kids might have trouble with it."
Joe Monson wrote, "I don't think it's any more scary than Scar murdering Mufasa (is that what his name was?) in "The Lion King", or Scar and the hyenas trying to murder Simba. The Lion King was full of all sorts of "scary" bits, but it got a G rating. I think Disney could pull off a G rating for "Spirited Away" if they put their minds to it."
Robin asked, "Does the rating system even consider "scary" as something of concern?. . . Violence between animals, as in the Lion King, might not be considered as "dangerous" to children as violence to people. Is there any violence in Spirited Away? Is there any nudity?"
Marc Hairston partially explained, "For a guide, all Disney animated films are G (except Atlantis and Black Cauldron which were PG). All the Star Wars films are PG (because of "intense scenes". Depending on which audience the studio is aiming for, they may insert a few minor things (a few curse words) just to push the rating up to a PG if they're hoping to attract more preteen and teenagers who might not want to see a "kiddie" G film. I haven't seen the film, but based on what I know from here and elsewhere I agree that a G or maybe a PG (depending on how "intense" some scenes may be) but no higher. Overall a G or PG rating makes Spirited Away much easier for Disney to pitch to the general audience than Mononoke ever was."
Joe answered (on "scary"), "a few people/monsters getting eaten, a fight scene later in the movie (thought it's almsot /not/ a fight scene), and maybe a few other things I can't remember right off." Joe's answer for "nudity", "Not that I remember. If there is, it's no more than in Totoro, which received a G rating."
Daniel Lam puts the "fanatic" in "fan", "I think Disney should have never picked up Spirted Away, who knows if they'd chop it and F it up? And what if we do petition, what if they (Disney) don't respond to our demands? I think that we, the fans, should have founded or created a release company to make Overseas contracts with Studio Ghibli to release their movies here. We can subtitle it the way we intend to, we can dub it, we can sell and profit from it. The way we start is pretty simple, we form a group first, then send information about the group around the net and neighborhoods, then ask for a donation, and from then on to license the movies then showcase it in Art Museums, Indie Theaters, then sell it. I mean it may takes years, but at least we'll get it the way we want it."
Michael Johnson pointed out, err, a few of the "defects" in Daniel's arguements.
Hanno Mueller tossed in some shots, but also added, "Seriously, I wished that the movie distributors (listen up, Buena Vista) would hire some folks "in the know" as consultants when it comes to marketing Anime. It seems to me that the people do movie marketing of this - let's say - odd product just know too little how to handle it and its fans."
Arthur Chappell posted his impressions of the Studio Ghibli UK Tour. Mark Yates posted his "Princess Mononoke" music video. Chill with Deborah Goldsmith in Tokyo.
Wow, two issues in two days. See you (really!) next week.