Steamboy hits North America

Beginning what is a spate of Steamboy related news; the LA Times have recently posted an article about the film and have included an interview with its acclaimed director, Katsuhiro Otomo. This detailed piece also features comments from Otomo’s executive producer, Shigeru Watanabe.

Having opened in limited US cinemas over the weekend, Steamboy has returned with modest takings at the North American box office, specifically raking in around $150,000. While these figures certainly aren’t spectacular, the ways in which anime is theatrically advertised and eventually released in the West often leaves a lot to be desired.

In all the hype surrounding the US theatrical release of Steamboy, popular American movie critic Roger Ebert provided a less than enthused review of the film. Scoring it with 2 out of 4 stars, Ebert labels Steamboy as a “… noisy, eventful and unsuccessful venture into Victorian-era science fiction”.