Gee, now that it won the Oscar Disney miraculously came up with an additional 650 prints? Suspicious.

Well, at least it is getting a decent release now, even if Disney had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it.

I'm really sick of this argument. How wide a release would have satisfied you? As it is Spirited Away recieved the widest American release of any japanese animated film in history AND the widest American release of any Japanese film, animated or live action, in decades!

No one else is doing a better job than Disney. Sony released Metropolis on like 4 screens for a single week. They seem to be doing the same thing with Cowboy Bebop. Pioneer re-release Akira in 2 cities where it played for one night only!

Spirited Away played near me for 8 weeks AND is comming back. In what way did Disney not do right by Spirited Away?

You're obviously forgetting about the Pokemon films.

Actually, Sony opened it on 9 screens, and it played for 13 weeks, maxing out at 15 screens at once. But still, that is a very small number.

Rereleases of films really don't count. Pioneer was undoubtedly doing it to drum up publicity for its video release.

Also, all those titles, including Beebop, are animation aimed at an adult audience. There is no proven mainstream audience for those type of films, while there is a very solid mainstream audience for animated children's films, which Spirited Away is.

I find the re-release of Spirited Away to be extremely encouraging, and it is a bold move by Disney, undoubtedly to trumpet up their first win in the Animated Film category. However, one has to ask why couldn't Disney have done this type of push when it was first released.

When Spirited Away was first released, it was to near unanimous critical praise. It also generated impressive per-theatre grosses during its first few weeks. However, Disney didn't take advantage of either of these factors and lazily rolled it out over the course of a month to it's peak release of 150 theatres.

Now, with the Oscar under it's belt, Disney is saying the film is about 100 times more marketable than it was a week ago, and at least 4 times more marketable than it was in its first run. Not that the Oscar isn't a great selling point, I just think Disney missed the boat on its first run.