WB involvement with Japanese films

[Don Brown]

>As for Death Note, there actually were a lot of complaints in the 
>industry that leaked into the papers about how the films were 
>distributed. The first film did well at the BO, but it was then 
>shown on TV only a few days before the second episode opened at the 
>theaters. 

>I don't think the 
>complaints were necessarily directed at Warner Brothers--it was NTV 
>that showed it on TV--but there was a lot of resentment against such 
>"different" tactics.

As Aaron implied, such tactics had less to do with Warner's involvement 
than rivalry between Fuji and NTV, if Nikkan Gendai is to be believed.  I 
summarised their article here: 
http://www.ryuganji.net/news/index.php?entry=entry070105-000755

"According to Nikkan Gendai, Fuji TV are pissed off at rivals Nihon TV for 
screening the first "Death Note" movie less than a year after its release. 
The film came out on June 17th of last year and racked up a healthy 2.8 
billion yen at the box office, and producers Nihon TV subsequently screened 
it on October 27th in the build-up to the release of the concluding half 
"Death Note: The Last Name" on November 3rd, contributing to that film's 
even more impressive haul of over 5 billion and counting. However, there's 
apparently an unwritten industry rule that says films may come out on video 
and DVD six months after they open in theatres, but can only be screened on 
free-to-air TV one year after their release, to maintain the natural 
balance of competition and fair trade or something like that. Some are 
viewing it as evidence of the fierce rivalry between two of television's 
biggest film industry players, Nihon TV's Okuda Seiji and Fuji TV's 
Kameyama Chihiro of "Bayside Shakedown" fame."

Don Brown
www.ryuganji.net

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