Box Office Mayhem!

Daily Box Office - Monday, June 20, 2005

Okay, so "Batman Begins" was the number one film this weekend. This comes as no real surprise to anyone really, but lets look farther down the list for a more interesting tibet. Right below "Crash," which came in at eleven at the box office, is "Howl's Moving Castle" at number twelve. Just two numbers below being in the top ten. On a mere two hundred and two screens. This is pretty freaking huge. I mean can you see what's so great about this? "Howl's Moving Castle," which has received virtually no advertising or promotion from Disney, is on far less screens then most movies, and opened with little notice from the public, beat some of the bigger budget Hollywood films out there!

It beat "Lords of Dogtown" which opened on eight hundred and forty-three screens, and (more importantly) "High Tension," which was on a whooping one thousand, two hundred and nine screens. That's only eight hundred screens shy of a huge summer release. What's even more incredible is that both these films have had at LEAST thirty million dollars in marketing, while "Howl's Moving Castle" will have been lucky to get fifty cents in marketing from Disney (they wouldn't even promote the release of this movie on the DVD releases of "Porco Rosso," "Nausicaa," and "The Cat Returns")!

If Disney expands the release of this movie another hundred screens this Friday, would I be getting my hopes up if I predicted it would actually BE in the top ten list?! I sure hope not, because being in the top ten list would be the best thing that could happen to anime fans, and it may even insure that all of the Studio Ghibli releases receive some sort of theatrical release. So if you know someone who has kids, tell them to take them to see "Howl's Moving Castle" this Friday and to spread the word about how good it is. If the parents resist, ask them whether they would like to take their kids to see a potentially breathtaking movie like "Howl's Moving Castle," or would they rather take their kids to see "Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D?"