Confirmed - Studio Ghibli's Next: GEDO SENKI

[redline]

Courtesy Anime News Service (http://www.animenewsservice.com):

As reported yesterday the Studio Ghibli website has relaunched, their new URL is http://www.ghibli.jp/. Via the revamp, the studio has revealed their next animation film project will be "Gedo Senki" (with English subtitle "TALES from EARTHSEA") directed by Goro Miyazaki (Hayao Miyazaki's son). The new movie is adapted from American writer Ursula K Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea". The planned theatrical release in Japan is July, 2006. Additionally on the new site you can view a production and director's diary. Readers may recall on September 20th ANS was the first English news source to report on this possiblilty. A blog entry of an anonymous editor working for a publisher in Tokyo then predicted the next film animation work to be tackled by Studio Ghibli would be based on the Earthsea series of novels by American fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin. When presented with only a last (family) name we incorrectly assumed Hayao Miyazaki would be directing although at the time he was the only publicly known Miyazkai directing films at the studio. The Japanese editor reportedly first learned of this news when a film rights option was being sought by the book's Japanese publisher Iwanami Shoten. The America-based Sci-Fi Channel adapted Le Guin's Earthsea series to TV in 2004 in it's "Legend of Earthsea" miniseries. The author has expressed her disapproval of the faithfulness to the original works of the above TV version. Hayao Miyazaki, has in the past admitted being an admirer of Le Guin's writings.

[TheGreenMan]

Awesome. I wonder how LeGuin feels about this, but I think they'll do it right (unlike the stupid miniseries).

[Ialdaboth]

Does Goro Miyazaki have any major experience as a director ?

Still thrilled to hear about a new Ghibli, of course, even if I largely prefer their first movies over everything since Mononoke Hime (included).

[Pelianth]

[ QUOTE ]
TheGreenMan said:
Awesome. I wonder how LeGuin feels about this, but I think they'll do it right (unlike the stupid miniseries).

[/ QUOTE ]
Certainly can't be much *worse*. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[aquapermanence]

[ QUOTE ]
Ialdaboth said:
Does Goro Miyazaki have any major experience as a director?

[/ QUOTE ]

He directed the Ghibli Museum.

So... no.

[Ialdaboth]

[ QUOTE ]
aquapermanence said:
He directed the Ghibli Museum.

So... no.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's hope that talent is genetically transmissible, then.

Thanks !

[Andrew Cunningham]

Given how dramatically (and badly) they changed Howl's Moving Castle around, I don't think we can take this for granted. I hope they get it right...

[Redcoffin]

[ QUOTE ]
Andrew Cunningham said:
Given how dramatically (and badly) they changed Howl's Moving Castle around, I don't think we can take this for granted. I hope they get it right...

[/ QUOTE ]

It bothered me that the additions/changes to Howl's seemed unusually arbitrary and worse, tended to showcase Miyazaki senior's perennial hobbyhorse of militarism which is not present in the original story. Changing the scenario for dramatic purposes is fine, but adding completely new issues is questionable. I hasten to add that Howl's is a good film nevertheless.

The Earthsea books are a sort of rambling, disconnected set of stories anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised to see significant changes from the way things are told in the novels. However, Goro Miyazaki will have the assistance -- and I very much hope, the goodwill -- of an extremely talented staff at Studio Ghibli, and I fully expect them to produce a capable and lovely film.

[Redcoffin]

It amazes me how the rights to produce video dramatizations of the Earthsea books, are getting around. Since Ghibli is owned by a firm in partnership with Disney, does this mean that Disney effectively owns the right to distribute films made from LeGuin's work? Is that how this production got approved in the first place? Otherwise, where did Ghibli come up with the cash to produce this property?

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
It amazes me how the rights to produce video dramatizations of the Earthsea books, are getting around. Since Ghibli is owned by a firm in partnership with Disney, does this mean that Disney effectively owns the right to distribute films made from LeGuin's work?


[/ QUOTE ]

Er... no. I don't know whether you're right about Disney owning Ghibli or not (they certainly distribute), but you may well be. Even so, it means Studio Ghibli own the rights to produce a film based on the first Earthsea book. Nothing more, nothing less.

(Edit: I assumed this from the original posting, but was incorrect, apparently it's a combination of various of the books. So it's wrong. Apologies. My general intent is that if company X say they are going to make a film of Y, it means they have the rights to do exactly that and there is no reason to expect that they also have rights to do Z, or that company W could do a second film of it, or whatever.)

I think the really surprising thing is that Le Guin allowed them to do it (assuming there wasn't some bizarre underhand thing with rights sold decades back); after the disastrous TV series, she wrote a public letter which was basically 'never again'. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

Here's a quote from her website about that debacle:

[ QUOTE ]

I've heard the usual advice to the book-writer, "Take the money and run," all too often. I'm sorry I ever said it myself — it's sell-out talk. The statement "They didn't wreck my book: there it is on the bookshelf!" — even that, though proud, is defensive. How about this, right at the start: "Forget the money up front, forget the fancy promises, pay me a decent share of the profits from a decent effort to make my book into a movie, with my participation in essential decision-making and script approval written into the contract — then maybe I'll talk to you."

Oh, I can hear the producers screaming like Fay Wray!

Gee, have I just made sure that nobody in Hollywood will ever ask for the film rights to one of my books again? Gee, am I going to worry a whole lot about that?


[/ QUOTE ]

Did Ghibli give her that script approval? Maybe they did. I'd be surprised, though: it doesn't seem like the kind of way they work. Perhaps with their previous output she actually trusted their assurances, or perhaps they made sufficient promises about particular aspects of the story (in the contract) to convince her they wouldn't butcher it.

[ QUOTE ]

Otherwise, where did Ghibli come up with the cash to produce this property?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hello? Studio Ghibli? Highest grossing film in Japan *ever*? Only mainstream anime studio? Every film dominating Japanese box office on release? Somehow, I should think they can drum up investment (if they need it) or else simply reinvest profits from previous films. No reason why this film should be more expensive than any of their others.

I'm definitely looking forward to it, although I agree that Howl's wasn't a particularly good film. (I'm not comparing it to the book - never read that one - but it was in the 'wow, this animation and mecha design is really inventive and cool, they've developed a fantastic visual world. is there a story somewhere?' category.)

A quick look at the Ghibli site, which has a promo poster (I assume) for its front page - isn't the main chara supposed to be black? I thought that was one of the things she complained about from the TV series... hrm, maybe the 'dubious rights that were accidentally sold decades ago' theory is looking more likely /images/graemlins/happy.gif

--quen

[mighty_vespa]

Not sure if we read the same letter, quen, but you left out LeGuin's wonderful "McMagic" quote. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif


[ QUOTE ]
"When I looked over the script, I realized the producers had no understanding of what the books are about and no interest in finding out. All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence."

<source> (http://www.slate.com/id/2111107/)

[/ QUOTE ]

Her letter summed up a lot of my feelings about the Sci-Fi series. The Ghibli movie can't possibly be any worse, so already it's an improvement.

Oh, and I hope that Ged is "red-brown" too. Not that that will make or break the movie for me.

[Elendil]

I look forward to every project taken on by Studio Ghibli, even though I haven't read any of the books or watched the Sci-Fi adaption (actually I purposely avoided it based on how horrible people were saying it was...), but I am dissapointed that Hayao Miyazaki is not directing this one. I hope Howl isn't his last ever project. /images/graemlins/sad.gif (Though I'm sure with as much clout as he has, he'll be working on this heavily behind the scenes.....or so I hope.)

Nikki

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
mighty_vespa said:
Not sure if we read the same letter, quen, but you left out LeGuin's wonderful "McMagic" quote. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

She actually wrote about three different ones - I quoted the one on her site, but there were two for different magazines. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

If that's Ged on the promo picture, his skin looks even paler than mine, which is saying something. :>

--quen

[EWD]

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
It bothered me that the additions/changes to Howl's seemed unusually arbitrary and worse, tended to showcase Miyazaki senior's perennial hobbyhorse of militarism which is not present in the original story. Changing the scenario for dramatic purposes is fine, but adding completely new issues is questionable. I hasten to add that Howl's is a good film nevertheless.


[/ QUOTE ]

I too liked the book more than the movie (but still enjoyed the movie). While it's been a while since I read the book, I thought I rememberd there being some issues about going to war/ militarism in the book too. Certainly Miyazaki "enhanced" those elements of the story, but I don't think they came out of nowhere.

[Shiroi Hane]

Last I heard, Ghibli hadn't moved to Hollywood.

[pomru]

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
Even so, it means Studio Ghibli own the rights to produce a film based on the first Earthsea book. Nothing more, nothing less.


[/ QUOTE ]
IGN Filmforce (http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/675/675486p1.html) and SciFi Channel (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=33682) report that Gedo Senki will be based upon the third and fourth books of the Earthsea series.

[DrMM]

[ QUOTE ]
EWD said:
[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
It bothered me that the additions/changes to Howl's seemed unusually arbitrary and worse, tended to showcase Miyazaki senior's perennial hobbyhorse of militarism which is not present in the original story. Changing the scenario for dramatic purposes is fine, but adding completely new issues is questionable. I hasten to add that Howl's is a good film nevertheless.


[/ QUOTE ]

I too liked the book more than the movie (but still enjoyed the movie). While it's been a while since I read the book, I thought I rememberd there being some issues about going to war/ militarism in the book too. Certainly Miyazaki "enhanced" those elements of the story, but I don't think they came out of nowhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a brief mention of war, in that Howl made 1000 league boots for soldiers, but really, it was the sort-of sequel to Howl, Castle in the Air, that had an anti-war feeling to it and it's probably that book you're thinking of. Howl's Moving Castle had no anti-war sentiment at all.

[The Pirate Queen]

[ QUOTE ]
Pelianth said:
[ QUOTE ]
TheGreenMan said:
Awesome. I wonder how LeGuin feels about this, but I think they'll do it right (unlike the stupid miniseries).

[/ QUOTE ]
Certainly can't be much *worse*. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. I'm going to be cautiously excited about this.

[Redcoffin]

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
... Since Ghibli is owned by a firm in partnership with Disney, does this mean that Disney effectively owns the right to distribute films made from LeGuin's work?


[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, seems I was wrong. I was under the impression that Ghibli was owned/controlled by Tokuma Shoten which had entered into the partnership with Disney. However, even if this was the case at one time it does not seem to be true now.

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
Even so, it means Studio Ghibli own the rights to produce a film based on the first Earthsea book. Nothing more, nothing less.


[/ QUOTE ]

I was speculating that since there has already been a TV dramatization of the Earthsea stories, the rights to produce such a thing are (by now) controlled by someone other than LeGuin's publisher. I am also speculating that whatever deal produced the TV series, it included a contractual provision that no other dramatization be made for a certain period of time. This kind of provision is not unheard of. I have no firm information, but it just seemed odd that Ghibli would have the rights to such a *well known* Americna property, particularly now that big fantasy movie series based on well known book cycles, are a hot property.

[ QUOTE ]

Hello? Studio Ghibli? Highest grossing film in Japan *ever*? Only mainstream anime studio? Every film dominating Japanese box office on release? Somehow, I should think they can drum up investment (if they need it) or else simply reinvest profits from previous films. No reason why this film should be more expensive than any of their others.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am not convinced. In the age of big-budget movie cycles based on well-known fantasy books, I bet it would be prohibitively expensive for any Japanese studio to try and out-bid Hollywood for something as well known as Earthsea. Which leads back to my suspicion that (a) Ghibli got the rights a long time ago when they were cheap, or (b) they have the right through a relationship with some US rights holder, of which the obvious candidate would be Disney.

[quenelf]

[ QUOTE ]
quen said:
Even so, it means Studio Ghibli own the rights to produce a film based on the first Earthsea book. Nothing more, nothing less.


[/ QUOTE ]

Somebody else corrected me on this (apparently it's actually other books in the series). Apologies for the error. However, what I really meant is that rights don't miraculously extend to a huge range of other companies to do stuff - not automatically. Sometimes they can be sold on, I guess... it probably depends on the contract. But it's very unlikely that anyone with an agent would sell unlimited rights to produce any number of films in any way for all time, etc.

[ QUOTE ]
Hiyo_2366 said:
I was speculating that since there has already been a TV dramatization of the Earthsea stories, the rights to produce such a thing are (by now) controlled by someone other than LeGuin's publisher.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I speculated about similar things. Judging by Le Guin's comments, though, I got the impression that she still has control.

[ QUOTE ]

I am not convinced. In the age of big-budget movie cycles based on well-known fantasy books, I bet it would be prohibitively expensive for any Japanese studio to try and out-bid Hollywood for something as well known as Earthsea. Which leads back to my suspicion that (a) Ghibli got the rights a long time ago when they were cheap, or (b) they have the right through a relationship with some US rights holder, of which the obvious candidate would be Disney.

[/ QUOTE ]

Have you read the author's articles on the issue? (Somebody linked, or you can find them at her website). It seems to me extremely unlikely that she would sell them to Disney now, or anyone else in Hollywood without getting the kind of deal J.K.Rowling got that gives very significant control. (Which she won't. See below.) It doesn't appear to be a case of outbidding. She is probably comfortably off anyhow. She's old - how much more money does she need? Certainly well under what Ghibli can afford to pay.

As for the American connection, probably there'd be a much higher chance that she'd agree to sell it to a non-American, non-Hollywood company.

Your point (a) is certainly something I was thinking about - sometimes film companies buy rights to things, then kind of shelve them, or sell them on to another company, or whatever or whatever. Something like that could have happened.

As for the whole 'big-budget movie cycles' thing, I don't think that's relevant. How many copies did Harry Potter sell? Squidgillions, all in recent years. How many did Earthsea sell? Quite a lot, over decades, with the majority in the past. There's orders of magnitude of difference in there.

And there are a lot of children's fantasy series out there - Earthsea happens to be better than (say) Harry Potter, but so what? It clearly doesn't have the same financial value. Likewise there are other very good ones such as (a couple of my favourites) the series set in Britain by Susan Cooper and Alan Garner. It's a buyer's market. There are many children's fantasies that will never make it to film (including most of those which are optioned in a rush after the Harry Potter phenomenon).

--quen

[quenelf]

Thanks for correction. I edited my post to indicate the bit which was wrong.

--quen

[Chloe]

Quen, that Susan Cooper and Alan Garner series-- what's it called?

I read Earthsea a long time ago, and it definitely made a strong impression. I am sooo glad I didn't watch that Sci-Fi series right away; people warned me about taht before I could be tainted. I am just very leery about them getting the story right, this one just has so much potential for them to go off on tangents if they so desire. Though since this is his first big project maybe the Director will try to follow the story a bit more fathfully? I personally hope so...

[BluWacky]

[ QUOTE ]
Kingmole said:
Quen, that Susan Cooper and Alan Garner series-- what's it called?


[/ QUOTE ]

It's not a joint series; he meant series plural, methinks.

Susan Cooper wrote the Dark is Rising sequence (which need filming NOW, they are absolute classic books), and Alan Garner wrote the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Moon of Gomrath, Elidor, books like that, heavily influenced by Celtic myth.

(and I'd kill to see another Prydain adaptation in animation - I happen to like Disney's Black Cauldron film quite a lot...)

[pianocello]

Has anyone else besides me seen this movie?
There were some things I liked about the movie. Firstly I liked how there were two main romantic couples in the show - one mature and one younger to contrast with each other. Next, I liked how they did something different by having a female lead that is disfigured.
It must also be Ghibli catching up with the rest of the anime world - the female lead is a tsundere and the facial contortions of the male lead could rival the cast of Higurashi.
However, there were some problems. The 1st hour of the show really bored me and had me looking at my watch. The 2nd half was amazing though I'm still not sure what to make of the surprise twist at the end. Also I felt the female tsundere changing from the "tsun" aspect to the "dere-dere" aspect to be a little too sudden.

Does anyone know how this did in the box-office compared to the other Ghibli movies?

[ThomasBellman]

Has anyone else besides me seen this movie?

I saw it at the cinemas back in August when I was in Sapporo, and liked it fairly well. But I chalked up all my confusion about it to me not understanding Japanese well enough to get all they were talking about, and assumed that lots of things were explained in the dialogue.

Now I have bought the DVD too, and seen it subtitled. My impression is not quite so good this time, as I now could understand the plot-holes... It is beautiful to watch, but there are too many things happening without proper explanation. I also get the feeling that the story is driving the characters, instead of the characters driving the story; it sort of feels like the writer wanted a specific end, but didn't quite know how to reach that end in a natural way, and so had to "force" the characters by inserting poorly explained twists to the story. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well here, and it is mostly a nagging feeling I have.

[mrgazpacho]

That's because 4 distinctly separate books, each with their own ending, were combined to make 1 film.

Too ambitious, but has some nice moments.

[ndm]

I also get the feeling that the story is driving the characters, instead of the characters driving the story; it sort of feels like the writer wanted a specific end, but didn't quite know how to reach that end in a natural way, and so had to "force" the characters by inserting poorly explained twists to the story. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well here, and it is mostly a nagging feeling I have.

I wanted to like it, but I got twenty minutes in and just stopped watching when I realised I really wasn't enjoying it at all. Had I been in the cinema I would have walked out, since I didn't really want to waste another hour and a half on it. I tried to treat it as completely separate from the books (the way I was able to treat the Ghibli version of Howl's Moving Castle as a separate entity and enjoy it despite the book being much better) but when the movie itself started relying on the audience having read the books to make sense of the story it made that impossible. (Like Sparrowhawk's conversation with the cloth seller, which went kind of like: "What ho, good seamstress! You were once a sorceress, why do you sell such shoddy merchandise? What's that, you sold your name? Oh noes!" :P) Besides, I realised when I stopped that about half the time had been spent on showing scenes of Sparrowhawk and the Prince walking.

It's by far the worst Ghibli film, imo. :(

[Illusion]

I've never liked Ghibli movies as much as everyone else seems to (except for Princess Mononoke which is absolutely brilliant), but I didn't particularly like this one either. I like how it had a more serious, darker edge than most others, but the story didn't make sense and seemed virtually non-existant to me.

I haven't read the novels, so that may have affected my enjoyment of this show, but I've heard that the author wasn't too impressed with this adaptation herself.