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NEWS: Former Madhouse Head: Poppy Hill May Not Have Recouped Costs

mgosdin wrote:

I think we need to remember the context of this quote. If Masuda was speaking in terms of the movie needing to recoup costs based on it's Japanese theatrical release only, then if the costs were above normal he may very well be right.

You may want to reread the thread yourself, it was already noted what he said and roundly dismissed as bunk. It was announced that it had earned $53 million after 2 months and was set to continue playing in 300 theatres after that. Are you seriously going to say with a straight face that production costs were in the 100's of millions? It sounds much more like sour grapes and idle speculation from some has-been.

How could they have lost money on something so popular?

First, we don't know what the budget of the film was. All we know is that Ghibli's animated films are generally not cheap to make.

If I were to guess, it would be due to the way distributors account for "loss". A very recognized example of this is in budget for advertising the movie, when the costs somehow explode beyond the movie's production cost.

Blood- wrote:

First, we don't know what the budget of the film was. All we know is that Ghibli's animated films are generally not cheap to make.

Hear! Hear! AFAIK Ghibli Studios is the only only one that still does animation without using computers AND they do not outsoruce to korea or china, so you can't compare their production costs with those of modern studios.

Blood- wrote:

First, we don't know what the budget of the film was. All we know is that Ghibli's animated films are generally not cheap to make.

Hear! Hear! AFAIK Ghibli Studios is the only only one that still does animation without using computers AND they do not outsoruce to korea or china, so you can't compare their production costs with those of modern studios.

The last Ghibli film not to use computer animation was Princess Mononoke.

dragon695 wrote:

The last Ghibli film not to use computer animation was Princess Mononoke.

Actually Princess Mononoke has some pretty noticeable -but not distracting- shots with CGI backgrounds. I don't remember any noticeable CGI shots from Ponyo or Arrietty.

Well I recall this question raised in some answerman column, and as far as I can recall this was the answer to it. At the very least, everything is drawn and inked digitally.

"Spirited Away" had $19mil in "production costs", Granted, that was 10 years prior and inflation is a factor since then; HOWEVER, "Spirited Away" was also directed by the elder Miyazaki, so I'd call inflation a wash unless they allowed Goro more free reign than his father. Let's call it production cost of $20mil. (it's also worth noting that "Spirited Away" had a 125 min run time, "From Up on Poppy Hill" only ran for 91 min, ie. over 30mins LESS of animation) So we're supposed to accept that gross proceeds didn't meet cost when cost was less than 40% of gross? That's pretty bad planning then.

To date, Steamboy and Princess Mononoke seems to still be the most expensive anime movies ever made, both at around $20 million in U.S. dollars. Unless Ghibli has gone over that and not telling (considering the lack of spectacle and effects in Poppy Hill, I doubt it), then by making around $53 million, it should have more than made up for the budget. I'd peg most Ghibli films to be around $10-15 million in budget.

Bottom line: if a studio can't make back their costs when they are the TOP grossing film domestically (in 2011, it was the #4 overall movie in Japan, #1-3 were all Hollywood films) then frankly, they shouldn't make movies FOR Japan anymore.

So we're supposed to accept that gross proceeds didn't meet cost when cost was less than 40% of gross?

A pedantic point re an earlier post; Tales from Earthsea was critically panned, but it didn't 'flop.' According to Box Office Mojo, it earned nearly $70 million.