why does it take so long for the movie to get to us

[etjusticepourtous]

We live in a globalized society, why is that they are now premiering 1.0 around the world. I don't understand. They should be premiering 2.0 right now.

[Mr. Tines]

Because the business practices of certain industries are still stuck in the past.

[Electric Sachiel]

Like Mr. Tines said, its outdated business practices that bogged us down. The fact of the matter is it would seem that business dealings for foreign films almost always get the shaft resulting in a varying degrees of delays and long wait times for it to arrive overseas.

Unlike blockbuster films that come out of Hollywood, smaller foreign studios who churn out films dont necessarily have the same advantages when releasing abroad. They dont have the financial resources first of all to provide for simultaneous or near simultaneously released films across the world. Hollywood Studios that do have this power include Warner Brothers, Universal, Disney, and a few others.

And where these studios can't distribute their films directly, often other foreign distributors step up to the plate ahead of time to sign contracts to get these movies ready for release in their respective foreign territories.


BACK TO REBUILD AND Japanese MOVIES:

For better or for worse....even though anime, Japanese film and even asian film in general is looked upon as being film genres that are getting increasingly popular....the fact of the matter is that they are still niche films.

Niche films are usually shoved to the side and left for the noobs or smaller distributors to pick up. Often this occurs many months or even years after the films initial foreign domestic release. For Rebuild I'm guessing that Funimation didnt look at Rebuild until fairly recently. The anime thing is a niche market film genre and like any business Funimation probably waited a bit to see whether Rebuild was actually financially feasible to buy up. So when talks initiated and they did buy the license, it took time to localize and being how small a company that Funimation they were only able to have limited screenings....


Sure you could argue they could have acted faster in getting licenses for these anime properties ahead of time....but again an business is a busines. For Funimation's sake they would probably want to see how each and every Rebuild film does in Japan first before even remotely considering buying the rights and showing it here overseas-----often at a loss.

It also depends totally on Khara and its associated distributors how they want to sell their contract distribution rights. Its basically a bit of both Financial and Business politics that are slowing us down from getting what we want from Japan FASTER!!


AND YES I HAVE NOTICED. Often times Asian territories do screen japaense films much much faster than their North American or European counterparts. Guess those distribution companies are more familiar with the Japanese film industry-close connections. Plus more people may be willing to pay to see a Japanese film.

[LiLi]

It seems to me that in my own European contry the Japanese anime movies that get delayed the most are those the distro rights of which are held by American companies.

We didn't get a cinematic screening of 1.0 yet AFAIK - but IIRC the DVD at least was released several months ago, way before the movie premiered in the US.

[wonderluster]

In the words of the show Family Guy.

"You're watching CBS. . . AISIAN STYLE"

[The Eva Monkey]

We live in a globalized society, why is that they are now premiering 1.0 around the world. I don't understand. They should be premiering 2.0 right now.

Because the Japanese don't give a shit that you want something right now without having to work for it.

Also, they don't want to wait months for a bunch of talentless Americans to go "blahdy blahdy blah" into a microphone.

Also, they want to actually make some money by releasing the film in their native country under strict conditions first.

In case you haven't noticed, most (western) films will show up on bittorrent the day after theatrical release, and tens or hundreds of thousands of people will download them, and that translates to potential thousands or millions of dollars lost. The difference between America and Japan is that Japan can actually control their releases more strictly to prevent piracy, and that may be the reason why Rebuild has been so financially successful in Japan. This is also because their film industry is intrinsically weaker than ours. We can't do that here in the west, and if we could, I guarantee you, we would.

[thefeelingofikarishinji]

No, actually, the Japanese policies encourage piracy because otherwise their is no way to see the film unless one is willing to wait years and years. And no, actually, most films do not appear on bittorrent right after they premeir in the west; very few do, and only someone who doesn't use torrents but merely despises them through pathetic "moral" reasons would claim that they did.

Theatres should have 2.0 right now, not 1.0. The policy otherwise clearly doesn't cater to the niche fanbase very much but to people who probably didn't even know rebuild existed.

[Joseph the PRPD]

No, actually, the Japanese policies encourage piracy because otherwise their is no way to see the film unless one is willing to wait years and years.

Really? If I remember correctly, when 2.0 came out there was a very strict anit-piracy policy. There is jail time involved.

EDIT:
http://www.cartoonleap.com/2009/07/06/evangelion-2-0-cam-version-outrage-japanese-authorities/

[thefeelingofikarishinji]

No, actually, the Japanese policies encourage piracy because otherwise their is no way to see the film unless one is willing to wait years and years.

Really? If I remember correctly, when 2.0 came out there was a very strict anit-piracy policy. There is jail time involved.

EDIT:
http://www.cartoonleap.com/2009/07/06/evangelion-2-0-cam-version-outrage-japanese-authorities/

The topic of this post is the delay in 2.0 coming to theaters outside of Japan, thus I made the point that restricting the film to only theaters in Japan means that those of us outside Japan do not have the option of paying to sit in a theatre to see the movie, so we are more likely to go for camrips, dvdrips, bdrips...because all of this comes years before we get any legal local way of viewing the film.

[The Eva Monkey]

No, actually, the Japanese policies encourage piracy because otherwise their is no way to see the film unless one is willing to wait years and years.

You misunderstand how Japan works. They tightly control theatrical releases in Japan because they know that other regions are ineffective at curbing piracy. The Japanese also have an etiquette/honor system working in their favor. It was unusual that that shitty 2.0 camrip got out. But they managed to control the release of 1.0 and 2.0 pretty well such that it wasn't pirated until it was shipped off to OTHER regions. Japan wants to make money off of its films as best as possible domestically before sending them to other regions via distributors. Distributors BID on these films, so the piracy affects the distributor's revenue stream more than the Japanese locally. You won't see a film like Rebuild released simultaneously, because the risk of piracy is high, and while not everyone who downloads is a customer lost, they want to make good use of a dynamic whereby the only way people can see it is via a transaction, because while a Japanese is very unlikely to do something like camrip a film, they will download in the privacy of their home.

Also, the last time a Japanese company seriously tried to do a simultaneous English/Japanese release (to my knowledge) was with Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and that didn't work out too well.

For most films, a couple years delay is totally normal. Remember it took five years for EoE to get over here? Bidding and legal takes a while to get through. Companies based in Japan don't have world wide distribution systems, so its not like Transformers 2 where it'll be out in several dozen countries the same month.

Being a big title, I'm not surprised it took two years for 1.0 to come out, I'll bet quite a few companies went for it, and Anno and company being busy with 2.0 probably didn't help much. I'd wager that since Funimation has licensed the first film, they have a position which will allow them to quickly license and localize 2.0. Probably within a year's time.

Even a volume of the manga takes 6 months to a year to get localized from time of publish in Japan, depending on how smoothly things go.

Things take time. Not to mention the Japanese like to take things slow. Many a western company has ruined a good business deal because they tried to quickly expedite a deal with a Japanese company.

[Kanchan]

But come on, its Evangelion. The shit is cash cow, its a cult film. Everyone watching this has seen the TV series and are going to pay to see it instead of some POS cam rip.

In fact, by postponing the release to foreigners so long people are actually going to bootleg the dvd rip. They are going to waste the chance at milking foreigners in the theaters.

[Bomby von Bombsville]

With any foreign film, a distributor for any given nation has to predict it will make them money and acquire the rights to it first. Film distribution is a very expensive process, and the legal process in acquiring the rights to distribute are long enough in themselves. Popular as Eva may be, it's still a niche series in America. Consider us lucky enough to be getting a limited theatrical release of it at all.

End of thread.

[LiLi]

I'd just like to point out the fact that it's apparently the American continent that's getting the movie late, not "the world".

Provided this data is reliable, Rebuild 1.0 apparently premiered in Korea about 4 or 5 months after it did in Japan, and then several other countries swiftly followed. Seven or so months after its Japanese premiere, it was reportedly shown in some other Asian countries not exactly known for their strict anti-piracy policy.

A pretty good camrip of 1.0 was torrented long ago, don't quite remember when but I'm pretty sure it was before the Japanese DVD came out. And it surely wasn't 'ripped' in an American theater.

By the end of 2008, more Asian countries and at least a few European countries had had a legitimate way to see 1.0. Several others had seen it in illegitimate ways due to DVD rips or camrips...

[Mr. Tines]

I'd just like to point out the fact that it's apparently the American continent that's getting the movie late

And then this appendage of the Anglosphere gets its legit anime after the USan distributors have digested it for a long while.

A pretty good camrip of 1.0 was torrented long ago, don't quite remember when but I'm pretty sure it was before the Japanese DVD came out.

It was 4-5 months after the film release (about halfway between the theatrical release and the DVD, which got ripped and subbed pretty much overnight) and came out of Korea, IIRC.

[LiLi]

It was 4-5 months after the film release (about halfway between the theatrical release and the DVD, which got ripped and subbed pretty much overnight) and came out of Korea, IIRC.

That makes sense: the Japanese DVD was released in April 2008, about 3/4 months after the Korean premiere.

BTW, According to the link above, some film festivals in Annecy, Anime Expo, Seattle, Spain, Canada and Indonesia showed the movie with subs in 2008.

PS: Didn't you English Fellows get your anime before the US once upon a long time ago? :(

:EDIT:

The topic of this post is the delay in 2.0 coming to theaters outside of Japan,

I have been wondering, is the 'us' in the title the pronoun or the US?

[Mr. Tines]

PS: Didn't you English Fellows get your anime before the US once upon a long time ago? :(

If that was ever the case, that would have been back in VHS days, when I didn't have the playback equipment, and thus took no notice.

I have been wondering, is the 'us' in the title the pronoun or the US?

OP is posting from outside the US of A, so pronoun.

[LiLi]

If that was ever the case, that would have been back in VHS days, when I didn't have the playback equipment, and thus took no notice.

I was indeed thinking of the old VHS days...
You guys should really stick with Australia then!!
Didn't they get 1.0 on DVD already back in 2008?

OP is posting from outside the US of A, so pronoun.

Thanks for clarifying! :) Just wanted to make sure.

[ath]

It seems to me that in my own European contry the Japanese anime movies that get delayed the most are those the distro rights of which are held by American companies.

We didn't get a cinematic screening of 1.0 yet AFAIK - but IIRC the DVD at least was released several months ago, way before the movie premiered in the US.

Right, we did get the 1.01 DVDs in October 2008, but I have my doubts that we'll ever see it in a theater here...

[LiLi]

Right, we did get the 1.01 DVDs in October 2008, but I have my doubts that we'll ever see it in a theater here...

Who knows? We did get a number of anime movies released in theaters here... as for WHEN that is gonna happen though...

[Ornette]

The Korean screening was at a film festival. It was a one time thing, there were pictures of it and it had English subtitles.

The point is, it's not so much Gainax/Khara's fault that the movie isn't shown in the states util 2 years later. If they had ability to distribute world-wide, they'd do it and just make money. They have to rely on local distributors, in this case Funimation, to do the R1 localizing and distribution.