Why You Won't See the Best Animated Movie of 2011 Until... 2012
In what looks to be the worst year for animated movies since 1995, when Pixar rescued U.S. animation, why is Disney sitting on the great Studio Ghibli's The Borrowers until next year?
Compare 2010's crop of animated movies to 2011's: Last year saw one animated movie which nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (Toy Story 3) and and had another one (The Illusionist) which you could reasonably argue should have been. It also had a pretty good crop of not-quite-greats: The under-appreciated How To Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Tangled, and A Town Called Panic.
So far this year we've gotten: Kung Fu Panda 2, Rio, Hopped, Hoodwinked 2, Rango, Gnomeo & Juliet and Cars 2, Pixar's first real disappointment. Not only are none of those going to be nominated for Best Picture, but so far the front-runner for Best Animated movie is "Well, someone's got to win it." And the rest of the year doesn't look any better. (Oh wait, The Smurfs will be out soon. How could I forget? Believe me, I've tried.)
Cars has been a disappointment both critically and financially. Its 35 percent critics rating at RottenTomatoes is nearly 50 points lower than any other Pixar release (even the much kinder audience rating -- 63 percent -- is an all-time low for the studio). The film's gross for the holiday weekend fell 60 percent from its opening the weekend before. As John Frost points out at in a very smart post at The Disney Blog, this puts it on a pace to make almost as much money as the 2006 original. That might seem like a good thing but average ticket movie ticket prices have risen $1.50 since then to more than $8. The number looks even worse given the huge number of 3D venues where C2 is playing -- those add $2 to $4 to the ticket price.
With all that it is exceptionally irritating that Disney is delaying the release of The Borrowers from Japan's Studio Ghibli until next February. It opened in Japan last year and will open next month in the U.K., so it's not like the Mouse has to wait to add an English dub. The Borrowers has already won Japan's best animated movie award and has been very well received both critically and financially in its non-English European release.
If you don't know Ghibli's work, you should. It is one of the three greatest studios for long-form animation in the history of movies. (The others: Disney 1938-1959 and Pixar.) Under the guidance of the great Hayao Miyazaki, it has produced an amazing string of some of the best movies ever (not just animated ones). These include My Neighbor Totoro, Grave Of The Fireflies (a devastating look at civilian casualties in World War II), Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, which won the Best Animated Oscar in 2002.
Without having seen The Borrowers it's impossible to say how it will rank among the studio's works. Although the critical reception it has already gotten guarantees it won't rival Ghibli's one truly bad movie, Tales Of Earthsea.
Disney and Pixar have shepherded many great releases of Ghibli's work in the U.S., so I can't really complain about anything they do on the topic. (Pixar boss John Lasseter is probably one of the few people whose admiration of Miyazaki excedes mine.) But, c'mon guys -- have a heart! Take pity and bump up The Borrowers' release. There's an Oscar in it if you do...
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