The 2nd Dimension

Saturday, September 30, 2006

A long wait for Gedo Senki

According to the October release of Newtype USA, the latest Studio Ghibli work: Gedo Senki (aka Tales from Earthsea) will not see a US release until at least 2009.
In a post on her website, Earthsea novel author Ursula K. Le Guin noted that a US release of Gedo Senki will happen "when the contract with the TV people for their film and rights runs out: not before 2009." She's referring to her publisher's contract with The Sci Fi Channel, which produced an Earthsea TV miniseries in 2004 and has the US rights to make movies based on the original books for four more years.
Gedo Senki is actually directed not by Acadamy Award-winning director Hayao Miyazaki, but by his son Goro Miyazaki. There has been some high profile tension between father and son over this movie relating to the younger's inexperience in animation. Regardless though, according to Newtype the movie "grossed over one billion yen in ticket sales in its first week, and distributor Toho is anticipating a final tally of over ten billion yen, which would make the anime film one of the biggest in Japanese movie history."

Not sure if Disney would automatically have the rights to this one since it's not directed by Hayao, but I can't help but wonder how high anticipation for it will be in 4 years. I guess it just gives that much more time for fan-subbers to work on it. ;D

No comments: