A Midnight Rose

A Midnight Rose (堀越 愛と幸せの物語, Horikoshi: Ai no Monogatari) is a 2006 animated romance drama film based on the 1997 light novel series Horikoshi: A Tale of Love by Ryotaro Sekizawa, who co-produced and co-wrote the movie. It was directed by Munenori Nawa and co-written by David Auburn and Robert Nelson Jacobs. The film, like the light novel series, follows a hapless Horikoshi High School boy named Naoki Miyashita (Michael Angarano), who is diagnosed with ADHD and fairly antisocial until one night when he befriends Katsumi Hino (Hilary Duff), who is considered to be the princess of the class he takes, and slowly, a romance blossoms between them as they try to deal with their own internal struggles and fears along with various events happening in their lives. Dermot Mulroney, Shia LaBeouf and Dennis Hopper also lent their voices to the film.

Initially, after the release of Teen Samurai, Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to Horikoshi, with plans for a feature film adaptation that Sekizawa would serve as a writer and producer for, but the project was put in a turnaround in 2003. Sekizawa, determined to still get a film adaptation off the ground, decided to finance the film independently, getting assistance from Bill Pohlad of River Road Entertainment, Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg of Double Features Films and Joseph Drake and Nathan Kahane of Mandate Pictures. The animation for the film was produced by Feel in Koganei, Tokyo, Japan.

A Midnight Rose premiered on January 25, 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film was picked up for distribution by The Weinstein Company and Destination Films. The film would be released to theaters in Japan on March 18, 2006 and in the United States on May 12, 2006. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed a worldwide total of $82.4 million against a budget of $11 million.

Plot
Coming soon!

Cast

 * Michael Angarano as Naoki Miyashita
 * Hilary Duff as Katsumi Hino
 * Dermot Mulroney as Atsushi Yasutake
 * Shia LaBeouf as Takeo Takayama
 * Bob Bergen as Amaya Konya
 * Mae Whitman as Yoshie Tsuchida
 * Jeff Bennett as the school director
 * Tom Kenny as the school announcer
 * Crawford Wilson, Megan Moore, Stephanie Sheh, Matthew Hill, Jennifer Hale, Steve Staley, Jeff Bennett and Sherry Lynn as the student choir
 * Crispin Freeman, Jeannie Elias, Eddie Frierson and Charlie Schlatter as the student council
 * Jason Harris Katz as a thug
 * Corey Burton as a teacher
 * Dennis Hopper as the narrator

Additional voices

 * Andrea Baker
 * Tom Fahn
 * Danny Mann
 * John Cygan
 * Mickie McGowan
 * Stephanie Sheh
 * Carrie Savage
 * Bridget Hoffman
 * Rif Hutton
 * Paul Pape
 * Joey D'Auria
 * David H. Kramer
 * Rachel Stand
 * Emily Anderson
 * Jack Angel
 * Laraine Newman
 * Caitlin McKenna
 * Nadia Lewis
 * Phil Hayes
 * Wendy E. Cutler
 * Michelle Ruff
 * Kate Higgins
 * Richard Epcar
 * Shawn Hoffman
 * Jonny Soloman
 * Jan Rabson

Distribution
After production on the film had finished, A Midnight Rose premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2006, becoming the first animated film screened at the festival since Waking Life in 2001. Shortly after its screening, The Weinstein Company and Destination Films jointly acquired the distribution rights for $5 million. Initially, it was believed that the film would only get a limited theatrical release in America due to marketability reasons, but after a successful test screening, The Weinstein Company launched a $20 million marketing campaign and decided to release the movie in over 2,000 theaters in North America in partnership with Destination, making it the latter company's first widely released film since Beautiful in 2000. The Weinstein Company also retained the domestic television rights to the film, whilst Destination's owner, Sony Pictures, distributed the film outside of America and retained the domestic video rights after release.

Theatrical release
A Midnight Rose made it's theatrical debut in Japan on March 18, 2006, through local distributor Shochiku. Subsequently, the film was released in the United States on May 12, 2006, with it's international release occuring throughout the rest of the year and early in 2007.

Home media release
On August 22, 2006, A Midnight Rose was released on DVD and UMD by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film's DVD release proved to be very successful, selling about 478,362 units by August 27, 2006, making it the third best selling DVD release of the week behind Silent Hill and Poseidon. The DVD release includes a behind the scenes featurette on the film's production, interviews with the voice actors, a music video and the movie's trailer. A Japanese DVD and HD-DVD release were distributed by Bandai Visual on January 10, 2007, both of which contained the bonus features from the American DVD release, along with additional material exclusive to those releases, as well as both the Japanese and English versions of the movie. Sony later released the movie on Blu-ray on April 6, 2010.