700,000 Advent Children sold

  • By Hirohiko Niizumi, Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
  • Posted Oct 13, 2005 1:41 pm PT

Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII CG movie proves popular in Japan; US release still up in the air.

TOKYO--Square Enix's first computer-generated movie may have flopped, but its second attempt has been a major success. In 2001, Sony-owned Columbia Pictures released Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an ambitious computer-generated movie made by game publisher Square Co. Ltd. The film, in a word, tanked. Earning only $32 million against a budget of more than $135 million, Spirits Within forced Square to scrap its animated film efforts to eventually merge with rival role-playing-game publisher Enix.

Luckily, Square's second CG effort isn't suffering from sophomore-slump syndrome. The company announced today that Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has shipped a total of 700,000 units in Japan since its release on September 14. The figure includes the UMD version of the film, the DVD version, and the 29,800 yen ($260) limited edition DVD package, which was only available for preorder.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children has been the subject of much attention because of its high-quality graphics, and it was featured at the Venice Film festival for two years in a row. This year, the film is making its way to the Montreal Film Festival and the Catalunya International Film Festival in Spain.

"We believe this was the result of the movie getting accepted by not just Final Fantasy VII fans, but by a wide audience," commented producer Shinji Hashimoto. "We feel that there is great anticipation [for the movie] in North America and Europe, where it is scheduled for release. We hope to make it an even bigger success [in those regions] than it was in the Japanese market."

But while the Japanese success of Advent Children is now an established fact, its American release remains plagued by uncertainty. Although online retailers list the movie as coming out on DVD and UMD next month, American Square Enix reps told GameSpot that "no final US release plans have been announced yet."

5 Comments

  • jaefrmbk2k

    Posted Jun 8, 2006 12:46 pm PT

    please do NOT post here

  • HaloMaster21

    Posted Mar 30, 2006 9:04 pm PT

    A lot of people already have pirated versions as Agent3sephiroth said, but they had to go through and change all of the lips to speak english. It will be a truly different experience in english.

  • Agent3sephiroth

    Posted Feb 2, 2006 6:08 am PT

    I doubt that it will be as succesful in here. because of the no of delays many would gone to illegal ways of viewing the movie. I for one will definitley buy this as im a big fan. post if your going to buy this coz itll be interesting to see how many.

  • n2Deepeth

    Posted Feb 1, 2006 7:19 pm PT

    I'm still pretty sure it'll do well here too. This is the movie that Spirits Within should've been.

  • Orasion_Seiz

    Posted Jan 31, 2006 3:56 pm PT

    its sure is popular in Japan.

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Related Game

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Boxshot
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Game Stats

Full Game Details »Close

Site Blogs