Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

For other uses, see Little Nemo (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with a film called Finding Nemo.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland

Japanese theatrical release poster
Directed by
  • Masami Hata
  • William Hurtz
Produced by
  • Yutaka Fujioka
  • Eiji Katayama
  • Shunzo Kato
Screenplay by
Story by
Based on Little Nemo in Slumberland 
by Winsor McCay
Starring
Music by
Edited by Takeshi Seyama
Production
company
Distributed by
Release dates
  • July 15, 1989 (1989-07-15) (Japan)
  • August 25, 1989 (1989-08-25) (US)
  • August 21, 1992 (1992-08-21) (US: Edited)
Running time
  • 95 minutes (Original cut)
  • 84 minutes (Edited cut)
Country
  • Japan
  • United States
Language English
Budget
  • ¥3 billion
  • ($35 million)
Box office $11.4 million

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, known in Japan as simply Nemo, is a 1989 Japanese/American animated adventure fantasy film directed by Masami Hata and William T. Hurtz. Based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, the film went through a lengthy development process with a number of screenwriters. Ultimately, the screenplay was credited to Chris Columbus and Richard Outten; the storyline and art style differed from the original version. The original soundtrack was penned by the Academy Award-winning Sherman Brothers. It was a box office bomb.

Plot

Set in 1905 (the year the Little Nemo comic strip premiered in the New York Herald), the film opens with the young boy Nemo experiencing a nightmare in which he is pursued by a locomotive. Upon awakening the next day, he goes to see a parade welcoming a traveling circus. However, Nemo is unable to see the circus because his father and his mother are too busy to take him. Later that night, Nemo imitates sleepwalking in an attempt to sneak some pie away, which acts against a promise he had made earlier to his mother. Upon falling asleep that night, Nemo is approached by figures from the parade. The circus organist introduces himself as Professor Genius and claims that they had been sent on a mission by King Morpheus, the king of a realm named Slumberland. The mission involves Nemo becoming the playmate of the princess, Camille. Although Nemo initially has reservations about interacting with royalty of the opposite gender, he decides to set off to fulfill his mission after being persuaded with a gift box of cookies from the princess.

Nemo is taken to Slumberland in a dirigible which he is allowed to drive, causing some chaos and is introduced to King Morpheus, who doubles as the circus ringmaster in Earth. Morpheus reveals that he summoned Nemo to become his heir to the throne. Morpheus gives Nemo a golden key that opens every door in the kingdom and warns him of a door with a dragon insignia that must never be opened. Nemo is introduced to Princess Camille and the pair roam the entirety of Slumberland together. Afterward, Nemo meets the mischievous clown, Flip, who angers a group of cops and forces him and Nemo to hide out in an underground cave. There, Nemo discovers the door that Morpheus warned him not to open. Flip tempts Nemo into unlocking the door, which unleashes the dreaded Nightmare King. Nemo rushes back to Morpheus' castle in time for his coronation ceremony, where Nemo is handed the royal scepter, the only thing capable of defeating the Nightmare King should he ever return to Slumberland. In the middle of a dance session between Morpheus and Genius, the Nightmare King reaches the castle and steals Morpheus away. As the partygoers search for a scapegoat, Flip reveals that Nemo was responsible for the Nightmare King's escape, since Morpheus gave him the key.

Nemo awakens in his home, which floods with seawater and ejects him into the ocean. Genius discovers Nemo and tells him not to blame himself for all that has happened. When the two return to Slumberland, Flip reveals that he has a map to Nightmare Land, where Morpheus is currently being held. Nemo, Camille, Flip, and Genius set off in a tugboat in search of Morpheus. They are soon sucked into a whirlpool and find themselves in the monster-infested Nightmare Land. The four come across a group of shapeshifting goblins who wish to aid in the quest to find Morpheus. The Nightmare King sends a flock of frightening giant bats to seize the rescue party. Nemo attempts to use the scepter, but awakens in his bed instead. The goblins appear in Nemo's room and the group travels to Nightmare Castle by flying through a hole in the sky. However, they are subsequently imprisoned in the castle, where the Nightmare King demands possession of the scepter. Nemo soon uses the scepter to finally eliminate and defeat the Nightmare King. Slumberland celebrates the fall of the Nightmare Kingdom. Camille escorts Nemo home on dirigible. The two share a kiss after which Nemo awakens in his room, where he apologizes to his mother for breaking his promise and trying to take the pie. Nemo's parents also agree to take Nemo to the circus. Nemo stares out the window as he reflects on his adventure.

Cast

Production

Nemo was the brainchild of producer Yutaka Fujioka. His dream for years had been to make a feature length, animated film version of Little Nemo in Slumberland which would utilize the resources of his Tokyo Movie Shinsha studio. As the first step towards realizing this project, in 1977 he personally flew to Monterey, California to convince McCay's descendents to allow him to obtain the film rights to the comic strip. He originally approached George Lucas in a year later to help produce the film, but Lucas found problems with the storyline. Fujioka also approached Chuck Jones, but Jones also declined. The film was officially announced as a project in 1982. In February of that year, the company TMS/Kinetographics was formed in America to produce Nemo, and the best staff from around the world were gathered together to begin production. Gary Kurtz was appointed producer of the American production side and hired Ray Bradbury and later Edward Summer to write screenplays. Kurtz would eventually step down in the fall of 1984.[1]

In the early 1980s, both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were involved with the film, but they both left due to creative differences; essentially, Miyazaki wasn't keen on the thought of an animated feature created by him where everything was a dream, and Takahata was more interested in creating a story depicting Nemo's growth as a boy.[1] Miyazaki later described his involvement on the film as "the awful experience of his professional career".[2] The directors who succeeded the duo were Andy Gaskill and Yoshifumi Kondo, whom both exited production in March 1985 after completing a 70mm pilot film.[3] Osamu Dezaki was also brought into direct at a brief point and too completed a pilot film, but left as well. A third pilot film was made by Sadao Tsukioka but has yet to become publicly available.[1]

Brad Bird and Jerry Rees also worked on the film through the American department as animators for a month, while at the time were also working on an unproduced adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit with Gary Kurtz.[4] During production, the two would regularly ask animators what they were doing, the response they were commonly given was "we're just illustrating what Bradbury is writing", upon meeting Bradbury in person and asking him about the story he was writing for the film, he replied "I'm just putting in writing what these wonderful artists are drawing". Bird and Rees soon left the project after their meeting with Bradbury.[5]

When all of these people had left, Fujioka had drafts done by Chris Columbus, Mœbius, John Canemaker, and many others. He then re-hired Summer to do yet another screenplay. Subsequently, Richard Outten was hired to work from Columbus' screenplay while Columbus was busy with his directorial debut, Adventures in Babysitting. Many Disney Studio animators including Ken Anderson and Leo Salkin worked on individual sequences, and John Canemaker, Corny Cole, and Brian Froud provided visual development. Frank Thomas, Oliver Johnston and Paul Julian consulted to the production. The world-famous Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman) were hired to write the songs for Nemo. This was their first anime film, though not their first animated film; the pair had previously worked on several projects for Disney, including The Jungle Book and Hanna-Barbera's Charlotte's Web.

Little production progress was made until January 1988, when the many ideas pasted on the walls of the Los Angeles studio were whittled down in order to create the storyboard from which the film would be made. It was at this point, Thomas and Johnston recommended William T. Hurtz as the director of the American production side and TMS hired Masami Hata, a former Sanrio film director, as the appointed director at the TMS studio in Japan. Actual animation for the completed film was commenced in June 1988, as TMS was just completing Akira.[1] The success of that film in Japan further helped TMS finally start production on Little Nemo. Even though it derived from an American comic strip, Little Nemo was animated by the Japanese company Tokyo Movie Shinsha and thus is often considered an anime film, even though it was a joint production of Japanese and American animators and production companies.

Release

The film was released in Japan on July 15, 1989. In a Summer that included strong competition, including Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service, it grossed ¥0.9 billion ($10 million USD) in its release and was considered a box-office flop, against a budget of around ¥3 billion ($35 million USD).

It was then released three years later in the United States in 579 theaters on August 21, 1992 through Hemdale Film Corporation.[6] 11 minutes were cut in order to secure a G rating.

Critical reception

It received mixed to positive reviews from publications including the The Washington Post, Variety, the New York Post, the Boston Globe, and The New York Times.[7] Roger Ebert gave it 2 out of 4 stars, though on a positive note wrote, "Little Nemo is an interesting if not a great film, with some jolly characters, some cheerful songs, and some visual surprises."[8]

Box office

Despite having a positive reception, the film failed to find an audience. In its opening weekend in the United States, Nemo made about $407,695 with a total US gross of approximately $1,368,000.[6] Hemdale Communications President Eric Parkinson designed a clever home video marketing campaign that enabled the video to debut as the nation's #1 top seller, with sales of over two million copies.[9] It won the "Audience Award" at Amsterdam's 1992 Cinekid Festival and was nominated for "Best Animated Feature" at the 1993 Annie Awards.[10]

In March 2005, Little Nemo was given a very limited re-release in Denver, Seattle, Atlanta, Austin, Houston, and other cities in the US. This was through Regal Entertainment Group's Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres, and United Artists Theatres as part of a Kidtoon Films family matinées promotion. It was only shown on weekends.[11]

Aftermath

After the film's release, Fujioka decided to retire from the animation business. TMS, having to recoup Little Nemo's losses, increased production on locally based anime programs and became highly involved in animation for western-based productions, including Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Batman.[12][13] By the time Little Nemo was released in North America, TMS was sold to Sega-Kyokuchi in 1992.[12] Since the early 2000s, TMS has no longer supplied animation services to western studios due to increasingly demanding costs. The studios has never again attempted a project like Akira or Nemo. The studio still does features, but primarily films spinning off existing anime properties.

Home media

US DVD cover

The film was released on VHS through Hemdale Home Video, Inc. on March 2, 1993. It features a mail-in coupon worth $5.00, with purchases of Tropicana Orange Juice. Hemdale also produced a Collector's Set which includes a VHS movie, illustrated storybook, and cassette soundtrack. On October 5, 2004, Little Nemo was released on DVD through Funimation (under license from TMS, which had regained North American rights to the film after Hemdale closed). All of the cuts that were made in the 1992 release were restored in this DVD, bringing the run time of the film to the full 95 minutes, even though it would receive a PG rating. However, this is not mentioned or addressed in the DVD materials.

After the title went out of print, Little Nemo could be seen selling anywhere from $80 to $200 US for a sealed copy (usually DVD) on Internet sites such as Amazon and eBay. Funimation's DVD was re-released as a budget title from Echo Bridge Home Entertainment on January 27, 2009, appearing commonly in department stores in low-price bargain bins. Then after Echo Bridge's reissue went out of print, it was released again by Discotek Media. On November 6, 2012, Discotek released a Blu-ray of the film containing the Japanese dub and original English audio tracks and included bonus features such as the pilot films from 1984 and 1987.

Video games

After the Japanese release, but before the US release, Capcom developed a Nintendo game entitled Little Nemo: The Dream Master, released in late 1990.[14] An arcade game, also by Capcom, was developed that same year under the title Nemo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Masami Hata Filmography > 28". Pelleas.net. 1989-07-15. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  2. Reviews Film Reviews Anime Reviews Book Reviews. "Anime Review: Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland | リトルニモ:冒険スランバーランドで | 1989 | Masami Hata | William T. Hurtz". iSugoi. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  3. "Little Nemo test film". YouTube. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  4. "‘The Spirit’ movie that could have been | Hero Complex – movies, comics, fanboy fare – latimes.com". Latimesblogs.latimes.com. 2008-12-12. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  5. "Little Nemo test film | Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  6. 1 2 "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992)". Box Office Mojo. 1992-09-04. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  7. Holden, Stephen (1992-08-21). "Review/Film; Young Hero in Pajamas Braves Nightmare Land - New York Times". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  8. "Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland". Chicago Sun-Times.
  9. "Entertainment Weekly Sales Charts".
  10. "The Annie Awards". The Annie Awards. Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  11. "Little Nemo Theatrical Release - News". Anime News Network. 2005-03-05. Retrieved 2012-02-28.
  12. 1 2 "TMS Entertainment - Television Tropes & Idioms". Tvtropes.org. Retrieved 2012-07-31.
  13. Tom Ruegger (2010-09-20). "Cartoonatics: Warner Bros. Animation Staff - circa 1990". Cartoonatics.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2012-07-31.
  14. "Little Nemo: The Dream Master for NES (1990)". MobyGames. Retrieved 2012-02-28.

External links

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