Who owns studio ghibli

The Walt Disney Company had the release rights, just as its animation studio was reaching creative and financial highs with the Disney Renaissance. Ghibli should have been rejoicing — the Japanese studio had inspired legions of ardent admirers in other countries, and its creators wanted to break through to a larger audience.

In America, animation was for families, and families might not want to sit through a two-hour epic. He was known as Harvey Scissorhands for a reason. The problem was never with Studio Ghibli — some of its best films were made during this period. The problem was that, as a corporate benefactor, the House of Mouse never understood what made Studio Ghibli special.

Though executives felt the failed campaign for Princess Mononoke spelled doom for any future releases, Lasseter argued otherwise. Lasseter fell in love immediately, offering to be the executive producer on the American version. In Japan, Spirited Away was an unquestionable hit: nearly 20 years after its release, the film is still the highest-grossing movie to ever be released in the country.

In the United States, however, even with the Pixar momentum behind it, Spirited Away struggled to break through. Word webslinger. Sarah El-Mahmoud. Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands. Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors. Thank you for signing up to CinemaBlend. You will receive a verification email shortly.

There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. By , after Howl's Moving Castle was given a limited release to theaters in the United States, Disney began to release future Ghibli movies to a wider audience. The company also released two other movies that Disney did hold the rights to in the US but never released in any way: Only Yesterday , and Ocean Waves.

On September 11, , Wild Bunch, Ghibli's International sales holder and had already held distribution rights to the catalog in Belgium, announced that their partnership with Walt Disney Studios France had expired on September 2nd, and from that day onwards, they would take over distribution of Studio Ghibli's movies in the country. The last Studio Ghibli products released by Disney in France had been a set of Futurepak releases, released in October These releases feature different covers than the original Disney releases.

The Taiwanese rights to Ghibli's Catalogue went exclusively to Deltamac in following Disney's exit from the home media industry in the country, with their single-disc Blu-Ray re-releases of certain Ghibli films lacking any mention of Disney or Buena Vista on the back of the packaging.

It is unknown if it is the same in China, where Excel Video distributes releases over there. Jake Cunningham is co-host of the Ghibliotheque podcast - despite only watching his first Studio Ghibli film only 18 months ago. Each week for the podcast he's given a film to watch by his superfan co-host, and has now watched them all. These films are perfect. I can't wait to people to watch those films because they are beautiful in themselves," he tells us. He recently visited Japan to record the podcast and went on a hunt for a "particular Japanese poster" from a Studio Ghibli film.

With the films now accessible to anyone with a Netflix account outside of the US, Canada and Japan, Jake thinks lots of people will see just how ahead of their time the Studio Ghibli catalogue was. Listen to Newsbeat live at and weekdays - or listen back here.

Streaming TV: 'Not everyone will survive'. Spirited Away rules China box office 18 years late.