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™:

 

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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]

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.