The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim | December 13, 2024 | New Line/WB | Anime | Kenji Kamiyama directing.

[AniNate]

I just can't help being cynical about this knowing the main reason it's getting a theatrical release is so Warner can fulfill its contract requirements and keep the rights to make more live action movies with the IP

 

 

Edited April 15 by AniNate

[PlatnumRoyce]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

I think it's the legs which is the bigger wildcard as that can be all over the place when it comes to anime.  Or put more simply, how much will this "break out" of the crowd which is anime and anime-adjacent?  I don't think we've seen a single frame of this yet, so it's still up in the air how weird stylized this will look. 

 

And like it or not, I do think "how it looks" will matter when it comes to the GA.  Then there's just the "diminishing returns" aspect of something which is an off-shoot of a franchise.  Could doesn't mean will, though.  Might not even be likely, depending on how one defines "likely".  Hard to really judge with lit-er-a-ly nothing to judge on.

We haven't seen any frames but 2 scenes were apparently shown in a convention in June of 2023.

 

 

I'm skeptical about the film but I think there's more going on to the active disinterest in anime than just the aesthetic look. Thus, the apparently clear visual homage to Jackson's films (even if stylized) is going to create an interesting test. Regardless of the scale of the opening, I suspect we see normal legs instead of the sort of insanely awful ones anime suffers from. 

Edited April 14 by PlatnumRoyce

[Porthos]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:42 AM, Boxx93 said:

Is this anime movie going to be 2D Hand Drawn or 3D CGI?

 

According to the Never Wrong Wikipedia™:

 

Quote

Animation[edit]

Sola Entertainment had begun work on the animation for the film by the time of its announcement in June 2021, and it will be its first production using hand-drawn animation in a style reminiscent of traditional anime productions. The film draws its visual inspiration from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.^[5][7]

 

5 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

I think when the first trailer drops y’all will see how big this is gonna be. I seriously doubt this plays like an anime film or a Star Wars show.

 

Okay, here's the problem in a nutshell.  

 

The next anime film that does more than 100m DOM will be the first one.

The next anime film that doesn't have the word "Pokémon" in the title that does more than *50m* DOM will be the first one.

 

Now it is true that after adjusting to inflation (using the-numbers), Pokémon: The First Movie adjusts to something like 65.8/181.8 (note: Wed opener). On the other hand, that was released around the height of the Pokémon craze in the US. 2024 is also a far far faaaaaaaar different movie going environment than it was in 1999 which makes inflation adjustments a rough cudgel even with the best of comps.

 

If we must bring in The Clone Wars (which, again, is a terrible comp for a long list of reasons), that is currently adjusting to something like 21.9m OW/52.8 DOM.  22m OW isn't too far away from a couple of the more recent high profile anime films lately.  Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, for instance, opened at 21.1 back in 2022.      Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train opened up at 21.2, though that was one of the very first films to come back as theaters were re-opening so something an interesting dynamic of pent up demand to see ANYTHING versus limited theaters/seat restrictions (as can be seen by the other Demon Slayer releases not doing as well [though, yes, I KNOW it's more complicated than that]).

 

Past those films it gets rough sledding, pretty fast. (BOM used since the-numbers doesn't have an easy chart reference for anime films [at least that I can find])

 

Or, to put it another way, WotR has to "prove it".  Still, I think looking at 25m-35m OW might not be too bad as an optimistic viewpoint right now with 20m-25m as "default" range, sight unseen.

 

 

[Porthos]

25 minutes ago, PlatnumRoyce said:

I suspect we see normal legs instead of the sort of insanely awful ones anime suffers from. 

 

Wellll, I said legs "can be all over the place" when it comes to anime, because.... they can be all over the place.

 

Take The Boy and the Heron.  That has something like 3.6x legs.  That's also one of the most acclaimed anime films in recent memory.  It also started from a low base. But it also shows the "oh, it's actually relatable to a Western audience that doesn't regularly consume any particular anime series good?  Wow, okay, I'll check it out" factor that a lot of anime has to fight through.

 

On the other hand, if it has more upfront interest, that could cut into that sort of WOM making it more "normal" as you say.

 

I think it's gonna be the "initial hesitation"/"overcoming stigma of anime" which is the biggest unknown here.  Once we get a gauge of that, then it becomes... Well, maybe not easier, but at least it sharpens the picture a bit.

[PlatnumRoyce]

Quote

Past those films it gets rough sledding, pretty fast. (BOM used since the-numbers doesn't have an easy chart reference for anime films [at least that I can find])

there probably isn't one perfect chart but you can use keywords in the report builder. In general they're a a bit inconsistent to use as a true single aggregate but they're there (I cite their "anime" keyword below).  You can do a couple of queries for "country Japan + [each individual animation filter]" and aggregate them together. 

 

5 hours ago, Porthos said:

Wellll, I said legs "can be all over the place" when it comes to anime, because.... they can be all over the place.

But they're obviously not all over the place and I think you're showing exactly why that is. tl;dr I just see a definition problem.  If you asked the random moviegoer, I'm don't think they're organically group The Wind Rises (or e.g. Grave of the fireflies) together with the anime franchise films getting increasing  boxoffice exposure in the US. Less all over the place than different causal mechanisms is my hypothesis.

 

Quote

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, for instance, opened at 21.1 back in 2022.      Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train

These extended titles are positioning the film into a much longer narrative of their respective franchises. I think "anime" inherently conjures up a target image not only of Japanese animation but "long running foreign pulp franchise" in particular. A full 1/3rd of the 21 films the-numbers call anime that received a wide release failed to get a 2x multiple and the only things to exceed 3x are Spiderverse and Dragon Ball Super: Broly. Dragon Ball Super: Broly seems like the outlier there. 

 

I really think this shows *negative interest* in this sort of elevator pitch outside of the target audience.

 

Quote

But it also shows the "oh, it's actually relatable to a Western audience that doesn't regularly consume any particular anime series good?

I just don't think that's what happened there. The NYT ran multiple pieces with Miyazaki's name literally in the headline. This is just not the problem there. There's just a completely orthogonal selling point where you can basically point and say something like "the Walt Disney of Japan." I think that's just fighting more against apathy (look at how non Hollywood animated films oscar nominated films fair at the box office) than negative interest. 

Edited April 15 by PlatnumRoyce

[MysteryMovieMogul]

It seems silly to compare this film to anime films based on already established anime/manga properties and a Miyazaki film advertised as Miyazaki's last film, a man who is also basically a brand.

[Eric Quinn]

 

[SpiderByte]

The truth is anime films are carried very very heavily by Japan itself. The biggest ww anime film, Spirited Away, only made 10 million domestic. And while the LOTR films did the 60-90 range when they first came out in Japan, the Hobbit movies only did 13-19. So a format with a weak domestic track record and a franchise who's region that format does best in hasn't been nearly as strong.

[lorddemaxus]

19 minutes ago, SpiderByte said:

The truth is anime films are carried very very heavily by Japan itself. The biggest ww anime film, Spirited Away, only made 10 million domestic. And while the LOTR films did the 60-90 range when they first came out in Japan, the Hobbit movies only did 13-19. So a format with a weak domestic track record and a franchise who's region that format does best in hasn't been nearly as strong.

Actually the highest grossing one is the Demon Slayer one. Also grossed 47 mil in the US. Boy and the Heron also tripled Spirited Away's DOM. Anime films are more popular than ever in the US imo. This is definitely not grossing over 100 mil DOM but don't see why somewhere around the 40s can't happen.

[interiorgatordecorator]

2 hours ago, lorddemaxus said:

Actually the highest grossing one is the Demon Slayer one. Also grossed 47 mil in the US. Boy and the Heron also tripled Spirited Away's DOM. Anime films are more popular than ever in the US imo. This is definitely not grossing over 100 mil DOM but don't see why somewhere around the 40s can't happen.

 

2 hours ago, SpiderByte said:

The truth is anime films are carried very very heavily by Japan itself. The biggest ww anime film, Spirited Away, only made 10 million domestic. And while the LOTR films did the 60-90 range when they first came out in Japan, the Hobbit movies only did 13-19. So a format with a weak domestic track record and a franchise who's region that format does best in hasn't been nearly as strong.

 

dont see the point in comparing this to an anime movie, if it flops it'll be for other reasons; if there is a precedent to compare it to, it'd have to be the an animated spinoff to a live-action franchise, but imagine if what if came out in 2021 as a theatrical release

 

the clone wars pilot movie did 35 million domestic despite terrible reviews, just being a bunch of eps stitched together and little to no marketing, I think something like that is the floor; considering the release date and if its well received, I could see it doing 100 million 

 

the only anime thing about is the animation studio, and even then (according to what I've read), it just looks like Castlevania 

Edited May 6 by interiorgatordecorator

[SpiderByte]

Clone Wars is not comparable. Completely different circumstances. It's also, again, not anime.

[Porthos]

27 minutes ago, interiorgatordecorator said:

 

 

dont see the point in comparing this to an anime movie, if it flops it'll be for other reasons; if there is a precedent to compare it to, it'd have to be the an animated spinoff to a franchise, dont know if that exists, but imagine if what if came out in 2019 as a theatrical release

 

the only anime thing about is the animation studio, and even then (according to what I read), it just looks like Castlevania 

 

As mentioned upthread, the closest, most recent example, might be The Clone Wars SW spinoff from 2008.  However, ironically enough, that "film" is far closer to the most recent Demon Slayer examples, as it was stitched together from going-to-be-TV-episodes in post (or during production, I can't recall which) when George Lucas decided it would be a great vehicle to promote the upcoming TV series of the same name.

 

(also that movie was aimed at a younger demo which sets off a different discussion)

 

Otherwise, we're into the realm of things like Into the Spider-Verse, but that's problematic in a different direction.

 

The real problem is, no matter how good it is, we don't know how it'll look/play visually.  And that sort of thing matters in a medium like animation, even if one takes the anime angle out of the equation.  One of the strikes (at the time) against The Clone Wars was its... distinctive visual style.  Perceived quality of the film didn't help matters, but the cake was already baking in the oven when it came to the look and feel of the project.

 

And until we get some actual footage of this (or at least promotional stills), a lot of this argument is gonna go around in circles.

Edited May 6 by Porthos
Into, not Across, my bad

[interiorgatordecorator]

3 minutes ago, SpiderByte said:

Clone Wars is not comparable. Completely different circumstances. It's also, again, not anime.

 

 no way any of the ads mention the term "anime", so its totally dependent on whether people associate the Castlevania art style with anime or not

I wager most of the GE will assume its not; doesn't mean they'll watch it, but I dont see why this should perform much worse than a "normal" animated lotr spin-off

maybe an animated lotr spin-off has a ceiling of 40 million, but that's another question

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Porthos]

6 minutes ago, SpiderByte said:

Clone Wars is not comparable. Completely different circumstances. It's also, again, not anime.

 

As I've said on more than one occasion, I agree.

 

That being said, I do want to point out "not anime" isn't quite saying much as anime itself covers a wiiiiiiiiide range of visual styles.  And also story beats/themes.  Not to mention story telling styles.  

 

After all, Pokemón and The Boy and the Heron are both "anime", but there's very little else in common between the two films.  

 

I hesitate to say a lot of this will depend on how "weird" this will look to folks not accustomed to anime (though as I just mentioned animation style absolutely was a strike against TCW and was brought out as a cudgel even as recently as last year's Wish).  So instead I'll just say that its visual look might go a long way as to how much of an uphill climb this needs to win over possibly skeptical people.

 

[interiorgatordecorator]

17 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

As I've said on more than one occasion, I agree.

 

That being said, I do want to point out "not anime" isn't quite saying much as anime itself covers a wiiiiiiiiide range of visual styles.  And also story beats/themes.  Not to mention story telling styles.  

 

After all, Pokemón and The Boy and the Heron are both "anime", but there's very little else in common between the two films.  

 

I hesitate to say a lot of this will depend on how "weird" this will look to folks not accustomed to anime (though as I just mentioned animation style absolutely was a strike against TCW and was brought out as a cudgel even as recently as last year's Wish).  So instead I'll just say that its visual look might go a long way as to how much of an uphill climb this needs to win over possibly skeptical people.

 

 

in regards to the weirdness factors, its written and illustrated by westerners, so I assume it's just going to be a normal lotr story but with a slight anime-ish look 

 

similar to the scott pilgrim show now that I think about it, though not looks-wise of course 

Edited May 6 by interiorgatordecorator

[ReturnOfTheBoxOffice]

How many wide release anime films have been connected to an incredibly popular western IP? I have a feeling in my gut, that if this gets good reviews, that it plays way more like a Spiderverse than a Spy x Family. 

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

How many wide release anime films have been connected to an incredibly popular western IP?

 

I mean, can you even list one?  Serious question.  Closest I can think of was Howl's Moving Castle, but that was a children's lit/YA book, and not that well known/famous.  I mean, *I* knew of it (and read it as a matter of fact soon after it came out), but I also know it wasn't that well known. 

 

Sure there's various TV series and net-exclusives that have done fairly/very well.  But something "purely" theatrical, and a wide release to boot?  Can't think of (m)any and cursory checks of Google don't turn up much.  Could have had Batman Ninja, but that wasn't released theatrically in the DOM market.  Every movie listed on this page and this page were either Direct to Video or limited in the US one way or another.

 

This might be one of the reasons, as horribly ill-fitting as it absolutely is, The Clone Wars keeps coming up in this discussion.  While it wasn't anime, it certainly had anime-inspired elements with its visual style (along with the UK cult classic Thunderbirds) so we can use the... discussion over the visual elements of that movie as something of a proxy. 

 

That being noted, it really is an utterly unsuitable comp for all the reasons I and others have said already (stitched together TV episodes, different demo target, in-mainline continuity but seen as an unnecessary cash grab, debates over quality, etc).

 

But, well, what's exactly a good comp for this?  

 

I think that might be the biggest sticking point of them all when trying to figure out an initial range for expectations.  The number of films we can reasonably compare it to might indeed be: zero.

 

Comparisons to anime as a genre only go so far, in other words.  They're useful, sure.  But only that.  At least until we see how it looks.  Then we might be able to use some films or other media projects as a barometer as to how it might do.

Edited May 6 by Porthos

[dudalb]

You also have the problem that great mnay Tokien fans are not interested in a spinoff, and will not pay to see this.

 

[ReturnOfTheBoxOffice]

3 hours ago, dudalb said:

You also have the problem that great mnay Tokien fans are not interested in a spinoff, and will not pay to see this.

 

I think you’ll get Tolkien fans in droves. I think it’ll be a “We want more of this instead of Rings of Power.” kind of a thing.

[PlatnumRoyce]

 

20 hours ago, Porthos said:

 

I mean, can you even list one?  Serious question.  Closest I can think of was Howl's Moving Castle, but that was a children's lit/YA book, and not that well known/famous.  I mean, *I* knew of it (and read it as a matter of fact soon after it came out), but I also know it wasn't that well known. 

 

But, well, what's exactly a good comp for this?  

 

What about 2007's Beowulf? It was a weird animated style and people didn't like it (both the film and the animation style) but the story has at least some "name ID" and is a PG-13 medieval/quasi-medieval animated film. The big contrary point is simply that it was genuinely an innovative technology in 2007 and that was a big selling point for the film (alongside Jolie's had star power). I honestly recall it being sold more like Lion King/Jungle Book [lie-ve action] than pure animation. Beowulf opened to 27.7M DOM (42.3M adj) and made 83M DOM (128M adj)/112.8 WW.

 

Given that it came out in 2007, it *just* missed out on 3D crazy so the rise of PLFs should inflate away some baseline audience declines.  

 

5 hours ago, ReturnOfTheBoxOffice said:

I think you’ll get Tolkien fans in droves. I think it’ll be a “We want more of this instead of Rings of Power.” kind of a thing.

 

I think that's even overselling the impact of Rings of Power. If WB wants to (i.e. aren't concerned about stepping on whatever may or may not happen with Peter Jackson), there's a lot of visual and audio hints they can drop to connect it to Jackson's beloved trilogy. 

This is the weird place where you probably can justify paying Miranda Otto 10/15 million just for the marketing benefit of this having a "real" connection to those films audiences will understand. I really don't know to what degree WB wants to do lean heavily into that (the film clearly was a rights-extension play). 

 

I think that distinction matters because there's an effortless pitch for Jackson's films being big theatrical events that wouldn't really be true of rings of power and I really think that's a shield from an anime (pejorative) tag. It's going to get non-zero revenue from older audiences.