Bringing anime's best to Americans
Gkids brings anime's best to big screens in the U.S.
At the start of a new decade, anime’s two top directors are being delivered to Americans by one company. And, no, it’s neither Disney nor Netflix.
The relatively unheralded Gkids, which was spun off 11 years ago from the New York International Children’s Film Festival by founder and CEO Eric Beckman, has now become the chief North American distributor of films by Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai.
On Dec. 16 and 18, as part of its ongoing Studio Ghibli Fest, an annual April-December screening series, Gkids will present Miyazaki’s late artistic partner Isao Takahata’s final film, “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” in theaters across North America. On Jan. 15, the company will release Shinkai’s “Weathering With You,” Japan’s highest grossing film of 2019, on 900 screens nationwide.
Gkids also has a stake in anime’s less family-friendly material, like the edgier Studio Trigger’s first feature, “Promare,” an apocalyptic sci-fi adventure that mixes 2D and 3D computer-generated graphics and is a fan favorite on social media. (“Promare” will next run in U.S. theaters on Dec. 8 and 10.)
But prospects weren’t always this rosy for the New York-based company.
Over lunch at the Line Hotel in Los Angeles, Beckman recounts the story of the big one that got away: Shinkai’s 2016 breakout hit, “Your Name.,” which went on to become one of the highest grossing Japanese films of all time in any genre, earning over $361 million worldwide, second only to Miyazaki’s Oscar-winner, “Spirited Away.” It is now being adapted into a live-action Hollywood feature by J.J. Abrams of “Star Wars” fame, and a separate remake is reportedly in the works in China, where the original made most of its money outside Japan.
“We got the initial pitch for ‘Your Name.’ from Toho,” Beckman explains, “and it was just a little one-sheet with a picture and a short, poorly written synopsis. They couldn’t show us anything else yet. There was nothing for us to evaluate, so we offered our bid based on the commercial results of Shinkai’s previous film” — which were respectable but hardly record-breaking.
A third of the way into a screening of the completed movie in the fall of 2016, Beckman started frantically texting industry colleagues, hoping there was some way Gkids could get involved in its U.S. marketing. He was too late.
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The Japan Times
The relatively unheralded Gkids, which was spun off 11 years ago from the New York International Children’s Film Festival by founder and CEO Eric Beckman, has now become the chief North American distributor of films by Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai.
On Dec. 16 and 18, as part of its ongoing Studio Ghibli Fest, an annual April-December screening series, Gkids will present Miyazaki’s late artistic partner Isao Takahata’s final film, “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya,” in theaters across North America. On Jan. 15, the company will release Shinkai’s “Weathering With You,” Japan’s highest grossing film of 2019, on 900 screens nationwide.
Gkids also has a stake in anime’s less family-friendly material, like the edgier Studio Trigger’s first feature, “Promare,” an apocalyptic sci-fi adventure that mixes 2D and 3D computer-generated graphics and is a fan favorite on social media. (“Promare” will next run in U.S. theaters on Dec. 8 and 10.)
But prospects weren’t always this rosy for the New York-based company.
Over lunch at the Line Hotel in Los Angeles, Beckman recounts the story of the big one that got away: Shinkai’s 2016 breakout hit, “Your Name.,” which went on to become one of the highest grossing Japanese films of all time in any genre, earning over $361 million worldwide, second only to Miyazaki’s Oscar-winner, “Spirited Away.” It is now being adapted into a live-action Hollywood feature by J.J. Abrams of “Star Wars” fame, and a separate remake is reportedly in the works in China, where the original made most of its money outside Japan.
Eric Beckman, Founder and CEO of Gkids
“We got the initial pitch for ‘Your Name.’ from Toho,” Beckman explains, “and it was just a little one-sheet with a picture and a short, poorly written synopsis. They couldn’t show us anything else yet. There was nothing for us to evaluate, so we offered our bid based on the commercial results of Shinkai’s previous film” — which were respectable but hardly record-breaking.
A third of the way into a screening of the completed movie in the fall of 2016, Beckman started frantically texting industry colleagues, hoping there was some way Gkids could get involved in its U.S. marketing. He was too late.
Read >>
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