Mary and the Witch's Flower

• 1. Introduction

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  In front of the press on the 15th of December 2016, director Hiromasa Yonebayashi introduced Mary and the Witch's Flower with a single line. 'This is the first movie since leaving Studio Ghibli,' he said.

  Toho distributed the film in Japan, marking the first feature from Yonebayashi's new studio, Ponoc. The cast included Hana Sugisaki, Yūki Amami, Fumiyo Kohinata, Hikari Mitsushima, Jiro Sato, Kenichi Endō, Eri Watanabe, and Shinobu Otake. What drove Yonebayashi to leave the studio that made his name, and how would this small newcomer's debut actually fare once it reached audiences?

• 2. Life At Red House

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  Shropshire's countryside becomes Mary Smith's new home when she moves into the estate of her Great-Aunt Charlotte, cared for alongside housekeeper Miss Banks. Red-haired, blue-eyed, and freckled, Mary lives in a red house but struggles to do anything well, spending her days frustrated and anxious. A local boy named Peter mocks her clumsiness and her wild red hair, calling her out whenever the two cross paths.

  Two cats named Tib and Gib, belonging to Peter, lead Mary to a cluster of glowing flowers in the woods. The estate's gardener, Zebedee, names them fly-by-night and warns her that witches have long coveted the flower's power. Gib vanishes the very next day, and Tib guides Mary instead to an old broomstick lying nearby.

  Handling the broomstick, Mary accidentally bursts one of the fly-by-night bulbs attached to it, releasing a surge of magical power. The broomstick springs to life, letting Mary ride it as though she were a witch herself. It carries her to Endor College, a floating complex of buildings for witches hidden in the clouds.

  Headmistress Madam Mumblechook greets Mary as a new pupil, assuming Tib is her familiar, and leads her on a tour of the campus. She introduces Doctor Dee, the college's renowned chemistry teacher, who is impressed when Mary manages advanced spells, including invisibility. Mary's red hair, a mark shared by the college's most gifted witches, convinces Madam and Dee that they have found a prodigy.

  Mary eventually admits that her power comes only from the fly-by-night flower, and that Tib actually belongs to Peter. Madam's warmth toward her cools instantly, though she still allows Mary to go home once she hands over Peter's address. That address becomes the reason Madam contacts her again before the night is out.

• 3. The Transformation Lab

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  That night, a message from Madam reaches Mary: she has taken Peter and will trade him only for the remaining fly-by-night bulbs. Mary and Tib fly straight back to Endor with the bulbs in hand, only to be locked away in Madam and Dee's transformation laboratory. Inside, she finds Peter already imprisoned, and learns that Dee has been experimenting on animals, Gib among them, twisting them into fantastical creatures.

  A spell book taken earlier from Madam's office gives Mary the means to reverse the transformations and break open the lab. She and Peter make a run for the Little Broomstick, but Peter is caught again before they can escape together. The broomstick instead carries Mary alone to an isolated cottage on a tiny island that seems to breathe with life of its own.

  Notes on spells line the cottage, along with a mirror that Charlotte uses to reach Mary through visions. She reveals that this cottage was once her home, back when she was a red-haired pupil who excelled at Endor. Charlotte found fly-by-night growing on the campus herself, and it drove Madam and Dee to chase a scheme of turning every human into a witch.

  A runaway experiment during Charlotte's years at Endor turned a fellow student into a test subject, and she fled with every seed she could gather. She eventually lost both the seeds and her broom, and went on to live an ordinary life afterward. Now she begs Mary to spend her last bulbs on returning home instead of going back for Peter.

  Mary refuses, vowing to rescue Peter no matter the cost, but the Little Broomstick is damaged before she can act on it. Flanagan, the college's broomstick instructor, repairs it, and Mary races back to Endor just as Madam and Dee attempt to turn Peter into a warlock. The experiment collapses again, trapping Peter inside a gelatinous monster instead.

  Mary passes the spell book to Peter, who uses it to undo both the failed transformation and the whole of Madam and Dee's research. The two fly home together on the repaired Little Broomstick, and Mary throws her last bulb away, telling Peter she does not need magic. The pigtails she wore on her first day at Endor are still in place by the time the flight is over.

• 4. Before Ponoc

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  Months after Mary Stewart published her novel, The Little Broomstick, in 1971, Walt Disney Productions bought the rights to adapt it for the screen. In 1980, artist Mel Shaw and director Wolfgang Reitherman pushed to adapt the book into an animated feature. The pitch came just after the studio released The Fox and the Hound. Studio management, led by newly appointed CEO Ron W. Miller, shelved the idea as too close to Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They wanted the animation department to chase more ambitious projects instead, pointing to The Black Cauldron as the kind of film they had in mind.

  On the 15th of December 2016, Yonebayashi and producer Yoshiaki Nishimura held a press conference to introduce the new venture. Yonebayashi told the room: 'At Studio Ponoc, we are working diligently with Yoshiaki Nishimura, a producer, and excellent staff.' Before founding Ponoc, he had worked with Studio Ghibli on When Marnie Was There and Arrietty.

  Nishimura traced the studio's beginning to Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, who notified him that the Ghibli Production Department was being dissolved. 'I was stimulated by the oversea creators when I went to the Academy Awards venue with The Tale of Princess Kaguya,' Nishimura said of the moment that pushed him toward starting something new.

  Nishimura later compared the new project to Yonebayashi's previous film, saying: 'Marnie of Memories is a work that proved that Yonebayashi, who excels at dynamic painting, sealed his specialty and can draw trivial emotions. But as a producer, I want to see dynamic animation, so I decided to do a fantasy with a cheerful girl moving around.'

  Asked whether he had consulted Takahata or Miyazaki, Nishimura said he never showed Miyazaki any storyboards, though the two did talk. Both filmmakers reportedly offered the same two words: 'be prepared.' Yonebayashi confirmed the film's cast on the 13th of April 2017, four months after the press conference that introduced the studio itself.

• 5. The Sound Of Ponoc

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  Composer Takatsugu Muramatsu, who had also scored Yonebayashi's previous film When Marnie Was There, took charge of the soundtrack. Joshua Messick, described as one of the world's leading performers of the hammered dulcimer, took part in the score's recording sessions. The theme song, 'Rain', performed by Sekai no Owari, plays over a release that would soon spread far beyond Japan.

• 6. A Global Rollout

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  The film opened on 458 screens across Japan on the 8th of July 2017. Altitude Film Sales announced at the Berlin International Film Festival that it had bought the worldwide rights, including release in the UK.

  Madman Entertainment secured the rights across Australia and New Zealand, premiering at the Madman Anime Festival in Melbourne on the 5th of November 2017. A wider Australian and New Zealand release followed on the 18th of January 2018.

  GKIDS took on North American distribution, opening the film for a one-week Oscar-qualifying run on the 1st of December 2017. A limited release followed on the 18th of January 2018, widening on the 19th of January 2018.

  In early March 2018, Altitude, the UK distributor, confirmed a special showing at selected Vue Cinemas on the 10th of April 2018. Its official UK-wide release followed on the 4th of May 2018.

  An English dub starring Ruby Barnhill, Kate Winslet, and Jim Broadbent was directed by Giles New and produced by Geoffrey Wexler. It was recorded in London during July and August 2017. It premiered in Los Angeles on the 23rd of October 2017, at GKIDS' 'Animation is Film' festival. NTV gave the film its first broadcast on 'Friday Road Show!' on the 31st of August 2018.

  Walt Disney Japan released the film on DVD, Blu-ray, Digital HD, and 4K Ultra HD on the 20th of March 2018. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, GKIDS' home media partner, brought it to North American DVD and Blu-ray on the 1st of May 2018. Madman Entertainment followed with an Australian and New Zealand disc release on the 4th of July 2018, and Altitude Film Distribution issued a UK DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray Steelbook on the 10th of September 2018. By the time that Steelbook reached UK shelves, distributors on multiple continents had already begun tallying how audiences responded at the box office.

• 7. Ticket Sales

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  According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed $2.4 million across the United States and Canada, and $38.8 million elsewhere. That international total included $27.6 million in Japan, $3.8 million in South Korea, $3.2 million in China, and $2.6 million in France. Altogether, the film's worldwide gross reached $42.2 million.

  JPBox-Office put the worldwide total slightly lower, at $41.8 million. A separate 2017 list from the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan recorded the Japanese theatrical gross as ¥32.9 billion.

  In Japan, the film opened in second place, taking in ¥428 million, or $3.9 million, over its opening weekend. That beat the ¥378.86 million that Yonebayashi's previous film, When Marnie Was There, made in its own first weekend in 2014.

  In the United States, a Thursday night preview on the 18th of January 2018 brought in $1.2 million from 573 theaters. Over the weekend that followed, the film held at 161 theaters and grossed $329,097, bringing its four-day total to $1.5 million. That four-day total came during the same wide release window in which critics were already publishing their verdicts.

• 8. What Critics Said

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  Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com rated the film three stars out of four, writing that 'the total lack of inner conflict in Mary might be why Mary and the Witch's Flower, as transportive and entertaining as it is, feels a little slight.'

  Moira Macdonald of The Seattle Times wrote that the film 'isn't quite a masterpiece' and that 'the screenplay needs a polish.' She still concluded that it was 'a joy to look at: a visual adventure, and a continuation of a remarkable legacy.' That screenplay carried two names, Yonebayashi's and his co-writer Riko Sawaguchi's.