Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for Millennium Actress (2002) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Miyoko Shoji, Mami Koyama, Fumiko Orikasa, Showko Tsuda, Shozo Iizuka, Masaya Onosaka DIRECTOR: Satoshi Kon CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hisao Shirai MUSIC: Susumu Hirasawa PRODUCTION: Madhouse

Box Office Performance

Millennium Actress earned $262,891 domestically and $-225,250 internationally, for a worldwide total of $37,641. The film skewed heavily domestic (698%), suggesting strong North American appeal.

Detailed Box Office Notes

Commercially, the film performed modestly on its US release earning $18,732 on its opening weekend and $37,285 during its full three-week release. The film was shown almost exclusively in New York and Los Angeles and received a minimal advertising campaign from Go Fish Pictures, a division of DreamWorks SKG. Although the scale of the release was not large, the merit of the theatrical release was not only in the box-office revenue, but also in the fact that critics would view the film and publish reviews and criticisms in general newspapers, magazines and websites, which would raise awareness of the work and reach an audience outside of the hardcore anime fandom.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

Millennium Actress is the second film directed by Satoshi Kon and his first original work, after the highly acclaimed Perfect Blue. It was planned by Masao Maruyama and produced by Taro Maki. The film is partly based on the life of Japanese actress Setsuko Hara.

The project for Millennium Actress came from the words "Let's make a movie that looks like a trompe l'oeil" by Taro Maki, who decided to produce Kon's film because he thought his previous work was amazing. The script writing began with a sentence that Kon came up with: "An old woman who was once touted as a great actress is supposed to be recounting her life story, but her memories get confused and the various roles she played in the past begin to blend into it, creating a tumultuous story."

Unlike the previous film, which he was hired to direct, this one was his original project, so he was able to express his own opinions, and decided to put more emphasis on the sound, especially the music, and asked Susumu Hirasawa, who had been adored for a long time, to compose the music. There were about 250 staff members in total, and the production period was about two years. The 20 or so main staff members were almost the same as in the previous work, with only the animation director changing.

This is Kon's last movie to utilize cel animation, as his later works were produced using digital ink-and-paint among other digital methods. And most of the scenes are drawn based on Kon's layout.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: 6 wins & 8 nominations total

Awards Won: ★ Animation Kobe Theatrical Film Award

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Millennium Actress was favorably received by critics, gaining a 93% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan said of the film "as a rumination on the place movies have in our personal and collective subconscious, Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before". Kevin M. Williams of the Chicago Tribune gave the movie 4 stars and put his feelings for the film this way: "A piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best [...] It's animated, but it's human and will touch the soul of anyone who has loved deeply". In February 2004, Cinefantastique listed the anime as one of the "10 Essential Animations", stating that it "represents a new maturity for anime, one where the technical achievements of 40 years are finally put at the full service of an emotionally rich story."

In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 306.