Princess Mononoke Carmen’s mega awesome pick for the last film viewing :D

Facts and things of interest <3 It is a period drama set specifically in the late Muromachi period of Japan but with numerous fantastic elements and concentrates on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who consume its resources as seen by the outsider Ashitaka. “Monokoke" is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese Language for a spirit or monster. Rodger Ebert placed the movie sixth on his top ten movies of 1999.Mononoke also became the highest grossing movie in Japan until Titanic took over the spot several months later. Overall, Mononoke is the third highest grossing anime movie in Japan, next to 2001's Spirited Away and 2004's Howl’s Moving Castle, both also by Miyazaki. It took Miyazaki 16 years to fully develop the story and characters of Princess Mononoke

At just under US $20 Million production costs, Princess Mononoke was the most expensive Anime ever created when it was released. Princess Mononoke was also the most successful Japanese, and in fact International (non-US) film ever created. Princess Mononoke earned over US$150 Million at the Japanese box office. Mononoke was however beaten at the Japanese Box office shortly after by the US produced Titanic, but it kept its title as the most successful Japanese film ever produced until Miyazaki's Sen To Chihiro surpassed it earning in excess of $200 million dollars in Japan alone (also surpassing Titanic for the Japanese box office crown).

Mononoke was included when Disney and Tokuma signed an agreement in 1996 giving Disney exclusive worldwide rights to a number of Ghibli films. Part of the deal in fact stipulated that Disney must release Mononoke theatrically in the United States. Disney agreed to this without ever seeing Mononoke. When Disney finally saw Mononoke for the first time it was nothing like what they expected (they expected a cute, children's Anime similar to Miyazaki's other films), but they were contractually obligated to release it. The North American theatrical run of Princess Mononoke was deemed an abysmal failure in the end, the most successful international film ever created (at the time) earned a paltry $2.4 million dollars in the United States and Canada.