(Reported on the ML by Richard Ho)

Maybe this might be a new information but I found out that Mononoke is ranked No.20-something on a website called Internet Movies Top 100 ... Take a look at the following:

http://ns.dp.ua/charts/mcm-full.html

Subject: News about D/T deal

I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Stephen Alpert from Tokuma International the other day, and here are some of the news he kindly told me:

• Mononoke Hime is currently *scheduled* to be released in March. But it *can* be pushed back as late as July. (Miramax can change their schedule any time. The release date of "Shall We Dance?" was pushed back even after Miramax officially announced its release date, so the same thing can happen to MH.)

• Miramax is taking time to release MH because they want to get it "right", in terms of translation, dubbing, and the timing of release. They are currently finishing up the dubbing.

• They are still thinking about getting Madonna to sing a song for MH, but nothing has been decided yet (no contract or anything).

• Yes, Mark Hamil is playing Musuka. And he does say "Laputa" many times. (But they can still cut that word from the film before the video comes out.)

• Many of us said that James Van Der Beek sounded a bit too old as Pazu. Disney intentionally did this. Disney decided to raise the ages of Sheeta and Pazu.

• The script of subbed "Kiki" was indeed based on the old Mecek dub, since Disney thought that it was the "approved" (by Ghibli) translation. Tokuma has told Disney that they have to translate from the scratch next time.

Great editorial review on the Anime News Network website about Mononoke Hime. If you have not seen the film yet, DO NOT READ IT. SPOILERS ARE ABUNDANT in the piece so I would only encourage people who have seen the movie to read the article. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/mononoke.html

According to Nov.2 Houchi Shimbun (reprinted in Yasuhide Mohri's web page at http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~hn7y-mur/mononoke2/monolink06link26.htm, thanks, Mohri-San!), Buena Vista International is "planning" to make a French-dubbed version of Mononoke Hime.

According to the article, Juliette Binoche ("English Patient") is "Naitei (informally decided)" to play the role of Eboshi.

Now, this is Houchi, which has been wrong in its report several times in the past (though it has been also right in other cases). And Disney can certainly change its plan any time. So take this with a grain of salt.

[...]

According to the same Houchi article, Mononoke Hime will be released in the US in March, 1999. Take this with a grain of salt, as well.

The german subtitled version of Mononoke Hime will be shown in Braunschweig (Germany).

At November, the 14 th at 15:00 in the cinema Broadway and again at November the 15th 22:30 in the City Filmpalast.

(Reported on the ML by Karsten Schubert)

Excerpt from a SciFi.Com Chat with Neil Gaiman (transcript)
(posted to alt.fan.neil-gaiman)

[...]

Moderator (wbwolf to Moderator): I've heard that you are doing the script for Mononoke Hime (The Phantom Princess)... how is the script coming and have you heard a approximate date of release for the movie?

Neil The script was finished in June or July, and they have already recorded half of it...
I'm really happy with it. It is an astonishing film. I've seen tapes with some of the voice parts
on -- Claire Danes, Billy Crudup, Minnie Driver and Gillian Anderson so far
and it's really tight. Sometimes I miss lines I wrote that didn't work because they didn't quite match the mouth movements, but that's
one of the things you just have to put up with when you're doing a foreign script. It will be
released commercially into cinemas in '99 -- exactly WHEN in '99 is up to Miramax.

[...]

(Reported on the ML by Isaac Alexander)

From November 19 to November 29, an animation festival named Anim'Asia will take place in Lyon (one of the main French cities). Several animes, including "Mononoke Hime" will be shown in some theaters of the city during these ten days.

MH will be screened on Sunday 29 at 8pm in a theater called "Pathe Cinema" (the address is rue de la Republique). It will probably be a subtitled version, but there has been no official confirmation AFAIK.

[...] This is a trade ad put up by Miramax International on page 2-3 of the Oct 19-25, 1998 issue of Variety for the upcoming trade function MIFED 1998 (for details, visit http://195.120.5.13/mifed98/). In it Miramax lists a couple (about 12?) of work-in-progress movies. Princess Mononoke is one of them. [...]

The MH entry looks like this:

PRINCESS MONONOKE
Written and Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Voices of: Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes,
    Minnie Driver, Angelina Jolie,
    Billy Bob Thornton
Adapted by: Neil Gaiman
Produced by: Studio Ghibli
Dubbing

So now we know 2 more voices. [...]

(Reported on the ML by Isaac Alexander)