Studio Ghibli's Newest Movie is Struggling in Japan

Studio Ghibli's latest movie, The Red Turtle, is having a tough time at the Japanese box office, Kotaku reports. The Red Turtle tells the tale of a man who escapes from a deserted island and battles a giant turtle. It is directed by Dutch-British animator Michael Dudok de Wit and features no dialogue.

The movie has not even cracked the top ten of the Japanese Box Office for its first week. However, as Kotaku notes, this may be in part because the week ended on September 18th, giving the movie only two days to make the top ten. But as Kotaku also notes, the anime movie Koe no Kotachi (A Silent Voice) premiered the day before the week ended and easily came in number two at the box office.

The movie has apparently grossed the equivalent of $328, 750. In comparison, Koe no Kotachi has grossed $2,771,278, while showing in a lower amount of theatres. This is strange, considering Studio Ghibli movies generally attract more of an audience.

Kotaku investigated the popular Japanese website Girls Channel in order to try to understand what was deterring Japanese viewers from the movie. According to them, reasons ranged from "it looks boring", "there's no dialogue in it, I'd fall asleep", "it's not Hayao Miyazaki" and "I had no idea this was out."

A movie perrforming poorly (or for that matter, well) at the box office is no reflection on quality however. As I noted in a recent article, several high-quality, beloved movies flopped at the box office. The movie may not be by Miyazaki himself, but the notoriously hard-to-please Miyazaki has still given it his seal of approval.

I hope the performance picks up or at the very least, the poor performance doesn't stop the movie from coming to the West. I'd like to see it and judge for myself. What about you? Do you have any theories on why this movie is struggling? Do you want to see it?

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