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The films of the legendary Japanese filmmaker will be screened in Switzerland over the next couple months.

The films of the legendary Japanese filmmaker will be screened in Switzerland over the next couple months.

"There’s nothing inherently wrong or right about a method, whether it be pencil drawings or 3-D CG," Miyazaki says.

DreamWorks’ The Croods opened in first place at the U.S. box office with $43.6 million. That is almost the exact same opening as Chris Sanders’ last film, How to Train Your Dragon, which opened with $43.7 million in 2010. It is also much stronger than the studio’s last film, Rise of the Guardians, which earned $23.8 million during its opening weekend last November. The Croods netted an additional $62.6 million from its foreign debut. Russia, which as we’ve established is crazy for DreamWorks animation, was the film’s top foreign market and generated $12.9 million in box office earnings.

In other box office news, The Weinstein Company’s Escape from Planet Earth is winding down its theatrical run. It grossed $477,522 in its sixth frame, upping its total to $53.4 million. GKIDS expanded Goro Miyazaki’s From Up on Poppy Hill into 6 theaters and grossed $59,693. The film’s two-week U.S. total stands at $131,927.

Nearly 600 people took our Croods box office poll which asked readers to guess how much the film would earn during its opening weekend. The correct choice—$42-44 mil—was the sixth most popular answer, guessed by 7.35% of readers. Here were the top five guesses:

10.93% of readers guessed $38-40 mil
10.04% of readers guessed $40-42 mil
9.5% of readers guessed under $25 million
8.78% of readers guessed $36-38 mil
7.53% of readers guessed $30-32 mil

Gkids is releasing Studio Ghilbi’s From Up On Poppy Hill to U.S. theaters on March 15th. The English dub of Goro Miyazaki’s film sounds pretty good…

From GKids press release:

Set in Yokohama in 1963, as Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics, the story centers on Umi and Shun, two high school kids caught up in the changing times. But a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart. With its rich color palette, stunning exteriors, sun-drenched gardens, bustling cityscapes and painterly detail, From Up on Poppy Hill provides a pure, sincere, and nuanced evocation of the past, and marks yet another creative triumph for Studio Ghibli.

First, there’s the book and then there’s the movie.  Where to encounter the narrative first is always the question!  Most of us ‘older’ folk tend to encounter the narrative first in a book, and then later in the movie version.  But for today’s children and for me — especially in the case of Japan’s Studio Ghibli movies at any rate — it’s often the movie first.    When I first got wind of Studio Ghibli’s movie release, Arietty (it came out in Japan in 2010, DVD release July 2011) I noted quickly that it was based on Mary Norton’s The Borrowers (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1953).  The directors at Studio Ghibli — notably Hayao Miyazaki and son, Goro Miyazaki — have occasionally gone to British children’s books for inspiration for their movies.  Their previously released Howl’s Moving Castle was based on Diana Wynne Jones’ book of the same title (published in 1986) and it was through that movie, that I was introduced to Wynne Jones’ writing.

Thanks to Studio Ghibli again, my daughter and I have had a chance to experience The Borrowers by Mary Norton.  I picked up a hardback edition of the novel at a used book sale in Nishinomiya where I lived and began reading it at night to my daughter.  The Borrowers are little people who live under a house in England, and who ‘borrow’ things from the much larger humans that dwell above them.  The family in the first series of the Borrowers books is a small one comprising of the father, Pod, the mother, Homily, and their fourteen year old daughter, Arietty (on whom the movie title is based.)    My daughter and I got about halfway through the novel before she got to see the movie (we rented the DVD in Japan just before the day we left) and it was clear from the snippets I saw of it that the Studio Ghibli team was well into animating the tiny world of the Borrowers with its signature, detailed and colorful animation for which it is famous.  I hope Arietty makes it into the North American viewing market soon, but barring that, The Borrowers still make a great read for parents and children alike.

Momo E No Tegami (A Letter To Momo) from director Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh) will open in Japan during next spring’s Golden Week holidays. Okiura spent seven years planning, writing, storyboarding, and directing the film. Masashi Ando (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) is overseeing the animation process. Among the animators on the team are Toshiyuki Inoue (Akira), Ei Inoue (The Cat Returns), Takeshi Honda (Evangelion 2:0), Tetsuya Nishio (Ghost In the Shell 2), and Hiroyuki Aoyama (Summer Wars). Hiroshi Ohno (Kiki’s Delivery Service) is serving as art director.

Here’s a second, longer trailer from Studio Ghibli’s From Up On Poppy Hill, which opened in Japan on July 16th. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro (Tales from Earthsea).

(Thanks, Ben Price)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: A Letter To Momo, Goro Miyazaki, Hiroyuki Okiura