![]() Standing just a few inches tall, these three Borrowers live in secret and sneak out at night to borrow only what they need from "beans" (human beings, wordplay lost in the Japanese version). For us, his perspective is secondary the primary one belongs to Arrietty (Mendler) and her parents. He is there with his aunt and a housekeeper to get some peace and quiet before an operation for his ailing heart. The film opens with Shawn (Sho in the original Japanese) arriving at a house. Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a Ghibli animator since the late '90s, makes his directorial debut.Īs presented here, Norton's story is a perfect fit for Miyazaki and Ghibli to tackle with its meeting of worlds, reality-grounded fantasy, teenage girl protagonist, old woman villain, and peripheral fat cat. The legendary Hayao Miyazaki himself, who previously and successfully drew from English literature in Howl's, is credited with planning and, with Earthsea's Keiko Niwa, the screenplay. Like most previous Ghibli releases, Arrietty could also boast of near-perfect critical reviews.Īrrietty, called Kari-gurashi no Arietti ( The Borrower Arrietty) in Japan, adapts the 1952 children's fantasy novel The Borrowers by English author Mary Norton. Arrietty features Disney Channel star Bridget Mendler in the title role and comedically accomplished married couple Amy Poehler (staying, as always, one step behind Tina Fey) and Will Arnett as her parents. It helps that the studio's English language dubs have always enlisted actors famous and relevant to Americans of a wide variety of ages. It stands to reason that the wider and harder Disney pushes these movies, the larger an audience they will reach. Arrietty's $19 M in 1,500 theaters handily bested Ponyo's $15 M 2009 run in 900 theaters, which itself easily outpaced Howl's Moving Castle $4.7 M haul from 200 theaters in 2005 and Tales from Earthsea's blink and miss $48 K 2010 showing on just five screens. The Ghibli films' American performance has been almost a perfect reflection of their theater count. To put that achievement into perspective, Arrietty's $19 million at our box office still trailed the totals of Winnie the Pooh and Mars Needs Moms, Disney's two big homegrown animated underperformers of 2011.īut, Arrietty barely fell short of those while playing in far fewer theaters and spending a lot less on marketing. Earlier this year, The Secret World of Arrietty became one of North America's all-time highest-grossing Japanese films and the biggest to come from Disney's 15-year partnership with Studio Ghibli. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |