Sharp-kun wrote:Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Sharp, how do you know that ADV doesn't have or have access to $100 million?
And I want real evidence, not "feelings".
I obviously can't post "real evidence", as I don't have access to ADV's financial records. Lets look at what we know though.
1) They are an anime company. Anime is still a niche thing, sales are going up, but are still small compared to other DVD's.
They're a
film company. They may only sell "niche" items, but they sell more than just anime. Just looking on their site, they have available series like:
-- Farscape
-- Andromeda
-- Mutant X
-- Beastmaster
all of which are
live-action titles. Heck, they're even the distributors for Pierce Brosnan's
Around the World in 80 Days -- not the best movie, to be sure, but definitely a
mainstream TV movie.
And even if their primary selections are of anime... have you seen how many pages and different DVD's they have? It may be a niche market, but they're apparantly one of the biggest players in that market,
and anime is becoming a larger market every year.
2) ADV license huge amounts of stuff, so much that titles they licensed over 2 years ago have still to be released (Slayers movies and the 2nd OAV for instance). Licenses are not cheap. They've aqquired so much they can't release it all in a decent time. Thats a huge amount they've spent, considering that licenses for such titles as Full Metal Panic got for sums over $100,000.
Other movie studios do the same thing. Remember, they've paid a single sum for the license rights, and get to keep those rights for a number of years. It's more financially sound to snap up a bunch of licenses now, even if you can't release them for a few years, than not buy them and hope there'll be something you can license later on when you're out of material.
Besides... $100 million is the cost of what, 200 licenses? 500? 1000? Are there really that many licenses that ADV is sitting on right now that could have had the money spent on a live-action Evangelion movie?
3) They refused to license End of Evangelion and Death & Rebirth, as they were "too expensive".
"Too expensive" can mean they didn't have the cash for the license at that point (whenever that was, considering that EoE was released a year ago, and was probably made available for licensing before then)... or it could mean they didn't feel they'd get enough of a return on EoE to justify licensing it -- which is probably more likely, given that you'd probably have to have seen and enjoyed Evangelion to want to watch a couple of special-made "alternate ending" episodes for it.
4) They've just opened a manga division. Again, not cheap.
Perhaps... but a company tends to open a new division only when it's a) making a big profit, or b) to keep up with its competitors. And even in the case B situation, you can't open a new division if you don't have the spare capital to do so.
If General Motors announced today that they were creating a new brand name to stand alongside their existing brands (Chrysler, Pontiac, etc.), would you assume that it was because they didn't have the cash to continue their other lines, or that they wouldn't even bother making any changes to last year's automobile models? Of course not; you would expect the new brand and division to be created simultaneously with updated models from the old divisions.
5) They're running the Anime Network, which still has a limited viewer base.
Unless that's their primary source of income, that doesn't mean much. Heck, Time Warner may be dropping AOL from its title, and their AOL ISP may be losing customers faster than rats leaving the
Titanic, but that doesn't mean their other divisions (i.e. Time Warner Cable,
Time magazine) aren't seeing revenue and profit growth, or that they've halted expansion in other areas.
With these expenditures, do you really think their going to risk $100,000,000 on a movie, that has a high chance of failure (even if they could afford it)? They'll have learned from other companies mistakes with things like G-Saviour, and won't risk that much on it.
As I said, its very likely to happen, but I do think some people are being a bit premature.
They may feel that, with anime starting to enter more of the mainstream markets, particularly in the US, that it's not that risky of a venture.
Regardless, though, of what we think, the official notice seems to be that they
are starting work on the movie. Does that mean anything? Heck, no; we've been hearing about the next Superman movie for nearly a decade now, with no movie in site; Spider-Man took years before it made it to the theaters; other movie ventures have been talked about that never panned out, either.
I guess, though, we'll have to wait until they make an announcement that they've started making casting calls, or even better started filming, before knowing for sure, though, won't we?
