Anime World

Anime World is a 2009 live action-anime hybrid film directed by Garrett Fredrickson and starring Alec Baldwin and Jodi Benson Like various films by Fredrickson, it was a co-production between his recently renamed company LIVE Entertainment and Japan's Madhouse Studio. It was released in theaters in the United States through 20th Century Fox.

The film was produced on a $50 million budget, and was released in-the United States on June 12th, 2009, where it received largely positive reviews from critics, and made $148.3 million worldwide, largely exceeding both Fox and even Fredrickson's expectations. It was nominated 4 Oscars for Best Actress for Jodi Benson's performance, Best Original Score for Mark Watters, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects.

Plot
COMING SOON

Cast

 * Alec Baldwin as Bernard Schulmann, a writer that ends up in the situation. Baldwin also does Bernard's voice in anime form
 * Robert De Niro as Troy P Knox, a detective who questions Bernard about the Anime World. De Niro also voiced the character's anime form
 * Anna Faris
 * Kathleen Turner
 * Catherine O'Hara
 * David Hasselhoff as himself
 * Patrick Warburton
 * Andy Daly as a Policeman

Voices

 * Jodi Benson as Therra, a female anime character who Schulmann befriends with. Her character was somewhat inspired by Tima from Metropolis.
 * Mike Kleinhenz as The Duke Ponkatsu, although referred as a Duke, he is an insane scientist who when he learns of the secret connection of the real world and Anime World, he decides to try and conquer both to create a whole new dimension. Fox initially wanted to have a more famous actor like Tim Curry or Willem Dafoe (who starred in Fantastic Mr. Fox that same year) to be Ponkatsu's voice, however, Kleinhenz was decided on when Fredrickson wanted some of the Anime characters to be voiced by actors in English dubbed anime.
 * Anna Paquin
 * Kirk Thorton as a security guard
 * Neil Patrick Harris as a Penguin Taxi Driver. The character, despite it's design paying tribute to the Suntory and Konami penguin designs, was inserted as a joke rather than an actual character.
 * Joshua Seth
 * Ruby Marlowe
 * Jan Rabson
 * Paula J Newman
 * Robert Axelrod

Production
The concept was conceived in 2003, when Tom Hanks was interested in collaborating with Fredrickson with making a film, Fredrickson himself also became intrigued with the concept of mixing live action and animation after watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Fredrickson began development on the film in 2004 while also working on Bob Adams: Final Fate, and he began to get some ideas that were similar to the Ralph Bakshi movie Cool World, however, he decided to make an original screenplay that had some elements of Cool World but integrated unique elements into it, the biggest being the anime animation being used.

Franco Mansusco Jr. who had previously worked on Cool World, came in to be a producer for Anime World, and the script was completed in January 2005, and pre-production began later that year

Filming and Animation
Fredrickson described the animation in the film to be "the most challenging thing I have ever done in my life", the movie was filmed in Greenwich, Connecticut, with animators from Madhouse visiting the filming in order to get a general idea on how scenes should be animated and composited into the frames. Many of the techniques used in the movie were the same as that of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, such as using robot arms and rubber mannequins of the characters. Initially, when Ponkatsu went to the real world, the people at Fox were strongly considering whether or not he should become live action or if he should stay animated, eventually they chose the latter option partly due to Fredrickson finding the concept of a cartoon villain being live action in a live action film while the animated character is not live action to be somewhat generic.

Filming began in November 2006, and it lasted eight months, with an additional month at Industrial Light and Magic for the blue screen effects of the Anime world. The way the animation was composited was that the characters would be animated on each film frame, as it was made easier to do thanks to the film being animated digitally. The animation took 15 months to make, mostly due to the animators' focus on trying to keep things consistent with the animation.

Release
Anime World was originally going to be released by New Line Cinema on June 12th, 2009, but the company dropped out for two reasons, 1, creative differences, and 2, Warner Bros making New Line a low to mid budget label of the company in 2008, and the people at Warner Bros considered the film a little out of place for New Line, and placed the film's distribution up for sale, with the film's distribution rights being purchased 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, who left the June 12th, 2009 release date unchanged. It was later released in Japan by Toho the following month.

Home Media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 20th, 2009, this combo pack contained an audio commentary from the people involved in production, a behind the scenes look into the making of the movie, deleted scenes, the trailers and TV spots, and an art gallery. In 2016, Fox released a 4K UHD Blu-Ray for the movie.

Reception
Anime World opened alongside the Nickelodeon movie Imagine That. Initially, 20th Century Fox was a little worried that the film wouldn't do very well in the box office due to hand drawn animation's decline in popularity. Much to their relief, the film grossed $13,293,290 during its opening weekend, and grossed $148.3 million worldwide

Critical Response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a score of 87% based on 173 reviews, with its critical consensus reading "Masterfully blending live action with anime and featuring a compelling story, Anime World is truly a film that knows how to work as both an anime film and it's own original film". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 85 out of 100 indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences on Cinemascore gave the film an "A-" grade on a scale of A to F.

Awards
Anime World was nominated in four categories in the Academy Awards, those being Best Actress for Jodi Benson's performance, Best Original Score for Mark Watters, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. It was also a nominee for Favorite Movie in the 2010 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.