Gedo Senki release delayed by SciFi Channel franchise rights

In a recent interview with the NY Times, Tales of Earthsea book author Ursula K. Le Guin has revealed that Goro Miyazaki’s anime adpatation (Gedo Senki) of her books won’t be released in North America until the Sci-Fi channel (who recently worked on live action TV series based on the same material) relax their rights to the franchise. Although the Sci-Fi channel are yet to comment on this, their control over the Earthsea franchise is said to end in 2009, but obviously that’s still a long time to wait.

Naturally this news will directly impact on the possibility of a UK release too. Though on occasion Optimum Asia (who have released the vast majority of Studio Ghibli anime in the UK) have released subtitled only DVDs, with a movie as big as Gedo Senki, no doubt they will want to benefit from an American produced and expensive English dub to help boost sales.