Year In Review: DreamWorks in 2003

By: Chris Beveridge
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2004

One of the continuing signs of the growth of anime into the mainstream market is when the Hollywood studios start taking notice of things other than the children's fare like Pokemon or the latest toy tie-in series. In 2002, Columbia Tri-Star developed an imprint label to handle specialized foreign films and things like anime and DreamWorks followed up with this in 2003 by creating their GoFish imprint.



GoFish, a cute play on the child in the DreamWorks logo trailer that fishes from the moon, looks set to try some unconventional pieces, much like DreamWorks was billed as being the home for when it started up in the 90's before falling prey to commercial realities. Their dip into the anime pond has resulted in one license so far, but their method of release proved to be something that anime fans had some difficulty with.



Highly praised during its limited theatrical run in the US and equally by those who imported the Japanese releases, Milennium Actres received a lot of buzz and high praise across the board. The pre-release information was unfortunately sketchy and hard to confirm. When it became apparent that it would be treated like a number of other foreign films planned in the GoFish line, meaning subtitled only, a good chunk of mainstream anime fandom avoided it. While the release did good among enthusiasts and those willing to check it out regardless of language, it never really seemed to reach a critical mass on home video.



Other than Milennium Actress, there isn't any other known plans for the GoFish imprint to bring more anime out. It's hard to tell whether their release of Milennium Actress has encouraged or discouraged them from looking into more theatrical properties to release, particularly as there aren't as many as there used to be in years prior. Looking into 2004, there's nothing on the table yet for GoFish/DreamWorks.



2003 Release History:



10/28/2003 - Milennium Actress