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REVIEW: Innocence Ghost in the Shell

...you realize that in order to turn a profit, the film needs to break some $40 million dollars, yes?

I absolutely loved the original Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh, and Beautiful Dreamer; I did find Oshii's heavy-handed philosophizin' to be tiresome at points but these were thought-provoking, well-crafted films.

Zac wrote:

...you realize that in order to turn a profit, the film needs to break some $40 million dollars, yes?

Whoa, how do you figure this?!

I'm sure it would've been heralded as these big budget thing, etc. if it had.

Ryosei, the numbers you're using are open to interpretation. It's been characterized to me on several levels by several people as a failure in Japan. It isn't going to make it in to the black there. It slid instantly out of the top 5 after debuting at the bottom. The critical reaction to the film (according to the people I spoke with, who I unfortunately can't reveal due to several factors) in Japan was mostly negative.

This film seems to really want you to think it's incredibly deep but the concepts he's talking about just aren't that complicated.

$35-40 million to merely post a profit is an outrageous claim, and a very uninformed one at that. To be more realistic, Innocence will be in the black come the $25 million mark.

Ryosei, I can't keep arguing this with you. You seem to have your own ideas of what it costs to make a film. I was told in the many, many, many, many, many classes I took on film production that if a film costs 2 million to make, it needs to make 6 to break even. Advertising and production are not the only costs associated with a film. Nine times out of ten there are investors who are paid back with interest out of box office revenue who helped to fund the film in the first place. Usually these investors are guaranteed a certain return on their investment. This means that the film has to make back its proiduction cost plus a solid 50 percent or so on top to appease the investors; THAT'S when the studio breaks even and starts making a profit. The Japanese film industry is starting to slowly mirror the US industry and since Ghost in the Shell was partially financed by US investors, I'd say you're looking at a similar situation.

You see, this is wherein my disappointment with ANN now lies, as despite its pedigree among online anime news sites, it is still hopelessly juvenile, led by individuals who are more concerned with their input of the facts, rather than the facts themselves.

it was refreshing to come to ANN every now and then and read honest, critical opinions.

The largest budget ever allocated to the production of an anime film was $10 million US for Mononoke Hime.

Hey, why do I show up as the author of this thread when Gatsu started it?

The Last Samurai is a wonderful example, a film that made less than $100 million of its production and advertisement costs in the US (which, despite Cookie's claims, are the only costs involved in a film), yet went on to enter the Top 50 of all time highest grossing films worldwide, with a final profit of nearly $200 million.

Considering Innocence's production budget stands at ~$18 million US, and it's advertisement costs are likely $5-7 million (not the $10+ you seem to believe; no investor in the world would sign off on that much advertising for an anime film in Japan), it has now made close to half of it's entire budget costs in Japan alone, and that is only counting the theatrical release, not the future DVD sales or merchandise sales (for instance, the OST of Innocence placed in the Top 100 of items ordered on Amazon Japan in early March).

Frankly, any other hopes for the picture revenue-wise at the Japanese BO would be unrealistic and greedy.

Please elaborate, as in order to facilitate my argument, I'd like to hear your understanding and interpretation of said concepts that Oshii tackles (which can be applied to both GITS and Innocence). Thank you.

Yes, but when you compare it to sales for anime like the One Piece of Crap movie, it's not much of a hit.

The reviewer's probably an Evangelion fan.

I find your take on Innocence interesting considering you enjoyed Jin Roh. I've always disliked that film as I felt it was insulting in that it expected the viewer was a moron pushing it's metaphor again and again and again until all the subtlety was left in a smoking heap of ruin. Jin Roh is one of the only anime I've ever seen that actually pissed me off ebcuase I felt like the message of the film was...you're too stupid to figure out our deeper message so we're gonna spell it out for you...over and over again.

You have abolutely NO RIGHT to disagree with anything in this review as long as you haven't seen the film.

I mean, it's not like we universally hate Oshii. He's made some amazing movies and is one of the most significant directors in anime. I admire him. But I think lately he has hit a creative dead-end. He's still obssessed with reality vs. virtuality and his dog/wolf imagery (part of his mad-genius charm in a way) and has been rehashing the same concepts for so long that they have grown stale.

Furthermore, I find your definition of "commercial success" to be baffling. Since when is breaking even considered a commercial success?

For my part I thought the recurring narration of the Red Riding Hood tale was not pushing the metaphor again and again but more like splitting the whole long tale into smaller and more frequent chunks. Smaller to be less disruptive to the story (rather than a long monologue), and more frequent so it's never too far away from the audience's mind.

Anyway, I'd like to ask... if you feel the metaphor was pushed too hard, were you really able to predict the ending of Jin-Roh based on that Red Riding Hood metaphor?