eww, gross

[davemerrill]

Got curious as to exactly how much box office these dang japa-heeno cartoons do in the States, so I looked it up.

Princess Mononoke: Domestic Total Gross: $2,375,308

Akira: Domestic: $553,171

Spirited Away: Domestic Total Gross: $10,055,859

Ghost In The Shell: Domestic Total Gross: $515,905

Ghost In The Shell 2: Domestic Total Gross: $1,043,896

Metropolis: Domestic Total Gross: $722,932

Ponyo: Domestic Total Gross: $15,090,399

Howl's Moving Castle: Domestic Total Gross: $4,711,096

Paprika: Domestic Total Gross: $882,267

Pokemon The First Movie: Domestic Total Gross: $85,744,662

Yu-Gi-Oh The Movie: Domestic Total Gross: $19,765,868

Cowboy Bebop: Domestic Total Gross: $1,000,045

Steamboy: Domestic Total Gross: $468,867

Jin-Roh: Domestic Total Gross: $94,591

I would have thought Akira would have done more business, seeing as how it was on the circuit for ten-fifteen years, but accounting on this kind of roadshow ticketing must be iffy at best. Together the Pokemon movies made about a hundred and fifty million dollars; no wonder they're still looking for the next Pokemon...


source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=anime.htm

Comments

[frustratedpilot]

Gag me with a Pikaspoon.

But really, Pokemon was a kid-level cultural fad that just happened to have a cartoon attached to it.

I'm probably one of the very few who saw Jin-Roh in theater when it was in Knoxville. Maybe the only guy, who knows?

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't blame you if that was true. I felt like the only adult in a room filled with a few kids half my age or more watching Princess Mononoke when that came out.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

They ran JIN-ROH at Georgia State and the previous film was some kind of indy horror thing with the crew in attendance; they all stood around chatting in the theater afterwards while we waited for them to leave so's we could see our movie. We finally had to start hollering at them.

Of course I saw the first Pokemon movie in a theater, but I had a 7 year old with me, so it's OK.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

I hate to admit so did I (minus the 7 year old).

[childings.livejournal.com]

Yu-Gi-Oh The Movie: Domestic Total Gross: $19,765,868

What. I didn't even know there was a movie

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

lesson learned: Having a TV show in afternoon kidvid broad release striped barter syndication (all key markets hit) for a couple of years can create a market for a heavily promoted picture showing nationally in around 2000 theaters and make money.

Now show me anything doing that today.

[(Anonymous)]

Ben 10?

-Tim

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Not in broad strip syndication to national local markets, playing in that 2-4 PM M-F slot. Cable is very limited, numbers are generally much smaller.

If this wasn't the case 4Kids would be killing with their kidvid block, yes?

It's why Disney still maintains some shadow of kidvid on ABC sat. morning. That broad reach really does matter.

Hasbro is really going to be in for a shock at how poorly their new cartoons are going to do on The Hub. Doesn't help that GI Joe looks like utter crap. Oh, they'll do fine in their timeslots for a new cable outlet, might even break a million viewers for first week tune-in. But Spongebob and Ben 10 will still be champs because their stations are on more systems.

Local stations won't go back to having an afternoon kidvid slot, they're making too much money on the barter deals with the 'chick chat' shows and the judge shows and the new genre, Doctor chat shows (which, really, are a subset of chick chat).

arrgggh.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain.

It was like they had a good thing going until this showed up.

[kikaiju.livejournal.com]

There's a difference of sorts between an arty thing like Akira (which did play at Phipps Plaza; that's not exactly an art house) and a brand like Pokemon.

Oh sure they are kind of the same thing: animated entertainment made to be watched by as many people who will by tickets. But one of them is designed to look good and tell the story the producers wanted to tell, and the other is primarily designed to sell stuff.

Including toy sales, Voltron hauled in over $1bn back in its heyday, not counting the goofy attempts at revival or even home video sales. Anything hauling a billion dollars is a marketing force. So it happens to have a cartoon attached. Shrug.

So when the NYPD band played the Yamato theme in the Macy's parade Thursday, I think Yamato crossed that boundary from artsy to brand. I want to see the toys on the Walmart shelves, now, thanks.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

yeah, I'd like to know what's up with that.... I mean, it's kind of a New York thing, Star Blazers was produced there. I'm sure some of the police on the force are somewhere near our age, grew up watching it. Or maybe it's a harbinger of a new Yamato consiousness waiting to dawn and bring us all together ushering in an era of peace, love, and bell bottoms.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

Certainly I want to be in that consciousness too!

[warpig1979.livejournal.com]

Dinked around in their database some more there, they don't have entries for most of the other old Streamline releases. Which is a pity, I'd kinda like to know how much Fist of the North Star or the Silent Mobius/Neo Tokyo double bill did.

Robot Carnival pulled a little over ten grand, though, so the both of those probably did somewhere in the same ballpark. Maybe a bit more for Fist...

[(Anonymous)]

I think Jerry Beck commented at one point that AKIRA's B.O. here was probably in excess of a million dollars, which seems entirely plausible to me--as Dave said, those reels were on the road. I personally was able to go see AKIRA in theaters in at least four different cities over a period of several years. In fact I skipped out on studying the night before I took the LSAT to go see it (again) in San Antonio, which should have told me something about my true destiny.

Can it really be true that INNOCENCE made double the money of the original GHOST IN THE SHELL? In some ways I think it's the better film, but still...There was apparently no U.S. theater tour for THE SKY CRAWLERS, which somewhat surprised me, considering Oshii's relative prominence. It's also interesting to note that not only was there a dramatic improvement in the performance of PONYO over HOWL, PONYO set a new record for Miyazaki in this country.

I regret JIN-ROH's performance, as I wrote the press kit ^_^ It may have been the 9/11-era release, and also the fact Viz Pictures didn't have nearly the connections of, say, Columbia Tri-Star (who handled METROPOLIS, whose release was pushed back for several months because of the attacks...I remember bringing my press screener to show at AWA in 2001). It's also true JIN-ROH wasn't the feel-good hit of the summer, but still.

--Carl

[warpig1979.livejournal.com]

The Ghost in the Shell thing seemed odd to me too, but then Innocence might have wound up on more screens. Alternatively, given that Box Office Mojo's database entry for the first picture says it was released in only one theater, their numbers might just be slightly borked.

I reckon the original was by far the more successful of the two on home video, anyway.