Just because you are a multi-billion dollar corporation doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes here and there. The Walt Disney Company is one of the most beloved corporatations out there due to their high quality products, which range from theme parks, to movies, to the streaming services, even people who claim to hate Disney are likely to be buying at least some of their products (they are also one of the most hated conglomerates for their sheer size and how they underpay their employees, however that is a topic too big for this article). That said, the company is huge with many moving parts, and it’s not surprising that mistakes (bit and small) do happen.
The initial opening of Disney’s California Adventure was so lukewarm that it required a $1 billion dollar refurbishment of the park. There was also the whole Scarlett Johansson controversy, where Disney decided to release Marvel’s Black Widow as a rental on Disney+ before checking to see if they were contractually in the right to do so. As you can imagine, when Disney acquired the rights to the Studio Ghibli catalog, there were mistakes made. There is one that stands out as being especially embarrassing though, seeing how easily it should have been to avoid.
The Spirited Away Oscar Campaign
In 2001 Disney’s relationship with their Studio Ghibli catalog was a bit…frosty, to say the least. While Kiki’s Delivery Service was a huge seller on VHS, the bomb that was Princess Mononoke (and the behind-the-scenes turmoil during production) made the company hesitant to continue dubbing and releasing more of their movies. While Disney management weren’t too keen to keep releasing Ghibli films, someone at Pixar (who was a business partner of Disney at the time) did want to see the movies released: John Lasseter.
Lasseter was a huge fan of Studio Ghibli and a personal friend of Hayao Miyazaki. He approached Disney in an attempt to get more of the movies dubbed and released. Miyazaki had a new film coming out called Spirited Away, and Lasseter wanted to bring that movie to America. While Disney CEO Michael Eisner wasn’t keen on the idea, at the time the company's relationship with Pixar wasn’t going so well, and Eisner figured it would be good to throw their star employee a bone and approved him being a producer on the English dub of Spirited Away.
When the dub was released and the reviews came in, it was clear that this was a pretty good movie, and Lasseter pushed Disney to make a serious Oscar campaign for it. Lasseter believed that with so many critics calling it one of the best films of the year, the film could potentially get a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. A campaign was put together with one of them quoting an Oscar-winning director himself. This is where a huge oversight was made.
Disney Misquotes James Cameron
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James Cameron is one of the most highly respected directors in Hollywood, having directed Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Aliens, and had recently won a few Oscars for directing Titanic a few years ago. So having your movie praised by him is considered a VERY big deal! When Disney started compiling praises for Spirited Away’s Oscar campaign, one of the copywriters found a quote by Cameron and put it on the poster. It read:
It has beauty, power, mystery, and above all…heart. Images from this film will stay with you forever.
That is a powerful quote and one that was certainly going to catch the attention of Academy voters. The problem is while that quote COULD be used to describe Spirited Away in the eyes of many, Cameron was talking about a completely different movie.
What Was Cameron Actually Praising
What made this blunder so embarrassing for the Mouse is that Cameron’s full quote was as follows:
Metropolis is the new milestone in anime. It has beauty, power, mystery, and above all…heart. Images from this film will stay with you forever.
Not only does this revel that Cameron was talking about another movie altogether, but it is safe to assume that whoever decided to use the quote decided to omit the first line so that the quote could be applied to Spirited Away instead. The movie is question is Metropolis, based off of a manga by Osamu Tezuka. The film was directed by Rintaro and distributed by Sony Pictures in America. While Cameron himself did not correct the mistake (or really say anything on the matter) the press was quick to point out that the quote was misplaced, and Disney issued a brief public apology and nothing further was said on the matter.
To be clear, we’re not saying that James Cameron doesn’t like Spirited Away. For all we know he believes the film (which ultimately WOULD win the Oscar for Best Animated Film that year) was an equal masterpiece! However, there is nothing on record on what Cameron thinks about the film or even if he’s seen it. One thing that is clear is that he didn’t leave it a public endorsement, regardless what Disney wanted people to think at the time.