Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Can't Anime Get A Wide Theatrical Release?
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NeoStrayCat
 Posts: 610 |
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Well, that explains why something like Sailor Moon R Movie (the re-dub) is spaced out to something like 300 locations like they posted, and can't have a wide release, though I wished it was out in my area to watch it, it wasn't there (not traveling across CA just to find a location, lol.), oh well, maybe later, I guess.
But yeah, usually Funi films do appear where I'm at, of course. And another example getting a wide release I assume, is the Yu-Gi-Oh movie, The Dark Side of Dimensions, I mean, its been a while since the Pyramid of Light movie in theaters a long time ago, lol. But yeah, watching anime in actual theaters in the US are a niche thing. |
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ultimatehaki
Posts: 1090 |
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the biggest time for anime in the US was when pokemon took over for like 3 years around year 2000 and everybody knew about it even if they didn't know it was anime. most likely won't be seeing something like that again.
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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This whole article boils down to it's a niche thing. IMO it is not a bug, it is a feature!
Let me explain myself with a real world example. We all know that in summer of this year the Kaleid/Line Prisma Illya movie will debut. Crunchy knows who saw said series and has their emails. They can ask people interested to register in a ticket pre-sale. If enough people register, crunchy can rent theater in that city to show the movie for one day at the very least. Even if the ticket price is at a premium, many fans will go, specially if it is shown while it also is at theaters in japan (beats buying a plane ticket). So you do not need 20-40 million dollars in advertisement. You do not need to be mainstream to make a profit. You do not need to attract casuals, it is cool to watch a movie knowing that each and everyone there is a fan (or at least, a hater dragged by otaku friends). If tickets sales are open to the public who knows, social networks can start to attract casuals because anime is cool! Nobody expected Your Name to be a blockbuster and some movies are more popular outside their home market for whatever reason. So instead of waiting for the next, hit crunchy/funi should attack the vertical market, feed the market that is already there instead of wanting to go toe to toe with pixar. |
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nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5120 |
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mangamuscle--
Let's do lunch! 
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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If I may provide a counterpoint on a whim, I have a greater familiarity with Indonesian restaurants than I do with Applebee's. I do sometimes wonder what the latter is like. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1113 Location: Puget Sound |
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That's not a real-world example, it's fan wank. In the real world, for every ten people who register maybe three will actually buy a ticket - the rest will be people who can't actually be bothered or for whom the showing will be at an inconvenient time or location.
In a world where anime is cool, yeah. Outside of the otaku bubble, we don't live in that world. |
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michaeltanzer
Posts: 168 |
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This is why ANIME movies SHOULD get an Wide Theatrical release in the first place! Same with Canadian films being released outside of Quebec instead!
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stararnold
 Posts: 227 Location: LaSalle, Quebec, Canada |
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This is why Hollywood needs to continue the trend of producing live-action movies based on anime and manga in the decades to come. Problem is some people would rather that the stories originating in anime and manga respectively (even the underappreciated ones) remain forgotten by western society in general forever than to see an American film studio produce an alternate telling of an anime or a manga with international/American non-otaku type viewers as its target audience.
Think about it. The currently-in-the-works American live-action Star Blazers movie, which Shoji Nishizaki (the adopted son of Star Blazers' creator Yoshinobu Nishizaki) is co-executive producing, is still a good idea, especially if there is no guarantee o fStar Blazers 2202: Warriors of Love getting the wide U.S. theatrical release treatment or even being a mainstream deal in america like Doctor Who. In this case scenario, the otaku will have their Star Blazers to enjoy while the non-otaku viewers will have their version to enjoy. It's like serving ice cream in multiple flavors. |
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Topgunguy
 Posts: 258 |
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Hell no! Movies nowadays are generally crap. I've only been to the movies once in 2016 for Rogue One because it was the only thing that whole year worth watching. I don't need anime to be bastardized by Hollywood with sprinkles of Millennial culture. |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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It's sad but true that anime remains quite niche, and most of the reason is flat refusal for people to give it a chance. I think Justin's 2-axis theory on the reasons people will give a movie or a show a chance are pretty accurate, by the way. I think it's sad that he estimates only 10% of adults even know what anime is; among my group I think about 10% are legitimate anime fans who have favorite shows and buy and read manga, about 50% like a couple shows or at least enjoy the aesthetic and can make some Dragonball or FMA references. I don't know anyone who doesn't know what it is. But then I live in SoCal and have a heavily Asian tilted friends group. Maybe it's different elsewhere. 
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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While I don't deny that the point still stands, two things: 1. While February IS a slow month for movies, one reason is that it is not a month that usually has a lot of "downtime". That's true for both adults AND children. So while you can certainly have a big family hit in February (Lego Movie came out in February of a different year), parents are not as "desperate" to find something to occupy their children in late winter as they are in the entirety of summer. 2. According to BoxOfficeMojo, Arrietty opened in 8th place (minor difference to be sure), but it also did so while opening on HALF (or less) the screens as any other movie in the top 10. The per screen average was good enough for 6th, and not far from 5th. (yes, that's not #1, but "animation" (as a whole, not just anime) is a tougher sell in America. (outside of tentpole Disney/Pixar and SOME Dreamworks movies) Just as example, "per screen" Arrietty outdrew Wallace & Gromit : The Curse of the Were-Rabbit in its first week. But in raw dollars W&G did better in week 1 than Arrietty did in its entire run. W&G also opened at #1 on 3600+ screens vs. Arrietty's 1500. Inflation is a factor in those numbers (W&G was 2005, vs. Arrietty in 2012) but screen count is a sizable factor as well, and relevant when discussing anime "wide" releases. I think one needs to wonder how "Oscar winner" Spirited Away COULD have done if given a true WIDE release. (highest screen count: 150, for an Oscar winning movie, for comparison, in Germany, SA never ran on less than 225 screens during its box office run) |
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DjangoDCCX
Posts: 16 |
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I swear the person who asked this question; it's people like that that makes anime fans look bad.
Are you saying I can't like my so-called "mediocre" western movies? That my "mediocre" western movies aren't as good as some anime film that I'm simply not interested in? That I can't enjoy watching anime without saying it's better than any western-made show or movie? And, you know what? This goes double for everyone complaining about Toonami being pushed back for FOX reruns simply because they feel a typical episode of Family Guy is an inferior product to an episode of Bleach. Get off your high horse. |
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xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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The smug arrogance of the person asking the question is irratating to say the least. I don't know about The Nut Job 2 since it has not been released yet but Sing was far from mediocre. It was a very enjoyable movie. I know several people who don't like anime because of the people who are like the OP. There are far more of them then there needs to be
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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4: They're not being released by major studios.
Most of the screenings are one or two-night event screenings for Fathom--which not every single theater in the country has--and aren't intended for indefinite three-week runs, and usually on in-between spaces when a Fathom-enabled theater has an empty screen or two to spare. Viz or Funi distributes a few prints as an event (and Funi is more established to distribute a DBZ or Titan event than Viz is with their Moon or Bleach), the same way that the BBC, National Theatre, NPR or RiffTrax can do a Fathom event but they can't make a million-dollar 3000-theater wide-release movie with Will Smith. 5: They're not intended to be "real" movies. They're being shown as promotional events to pump up fan awareness, court curious new fans, and sell the disk, and raise some recoup funds for the dub, the same way that Warner shows its Batman and Scooby-Doo direct-to-video animation as theater events, if they believe they won't get it back on disk. Back in the old days, a movie that the studio wanted to go direct to video would get a quote, "billboard" release in a few hidden cities during a cannon-fodder week before a big hit would open the next week to crush it--So that it would leave quickly but there, they could legally say the movie HAD played theaters before getting that video release going.
Not for Disney-- Here's that key difference between Arietty and Moon/Titan: Arietty WAS a "real" movie, distributed in (reasonably) wide-release theaters by a major studio, with the intent that it would play until it stopped, just like any other family movie. "But it was February!" Yes: Not exactly May or even March, but even as far back as Disney's early-00's blitz of putting their vidquels and Pooh movies in theaters ("Return to Neverland", anyone?), Disney's been experienced to know that school vacations tend to happen in February--for one week ONLY--and that parents want something to get their kids out of the house by the end of the week. That's why Disney's noticed that it's handy to have a disposable kids' film opening during that week, that they won't feel too badly about losing to March competition or when the kids go back to school--And which, like "Recess: the Movie" or "The Jungle Book 2", will probably be lucky enough to get a little more attention and business than it might deserve any other week of the year. And yes, Arietty was cute-Ghibli enough for Disney to try and sell mainstream to cuddly new-generation Spirited/Howl fans expecting something cute and whimsical, whereas "Princess Mononoke" and "From Up On Poppy Hill" were not. |
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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To be honest I don't really care if Anime movies get a theatrical release so long as they get released on blu-ray and dubbed I'm happy.
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