Hot stuff in Hollywood: Anime

There was an article in Friday's USA Today that caught my attention. This article was addressing the latest trend in Hollywood, acquiring rights to popular anime titles. For those that don't know, anime is a style of artwork used in Japanese cartoons. According to this article, big names like Leonardo DiCaprio and even Steven Spielberg have bought rights to a handful of popular Japanese titles including "Ghost in the Shell", and "Akira". This seems like a very risky move to me, because anime is not completely widespread in our country yet. The article makes a very good point, saying that "little anime has caught on with broader audiences (other than kids).

Speed Racer is the latest attempt in Hollywood. This is an adaptation of the cartoon aired in the late 1990s, which was an adaptation of a Japanese cartoon. Speed Racer has a respectable fan base, but I think they may have dumbed down this film too much to appeal to the largest movie demographic, young adults. The targeted audienc e of this film is clearly young children, because the cheesy concept doesn't seem deep enough to hold the attention of adults. While I always enjoy watching something innovative and new, I feel like this genre is still in its infancy in our country. Perhaps in a few years this could be successful, but for now it seems like these movies are destined to fail.