Because of the expense of the release there will be no profits from this release until the film goes into Home Video. Hopefully the theatrical release will help the Home Video release be more successful. Usually, the advertising from the movie resonates with the public in time for the Home Video. Disney will be thinking twice before releasing anymore Ghibli features theatrically in the near future. And, like all distributors of limited releases, Miramax bought television ad time in certain markets to see if commercials would have any appreciable affect on box office.
Distributors compare markets with advertising against markets with no advertising.
Almost nil affect. On a per theater screen average, TV ads added almost nothing. In other words, Miramax could advertise all it wanted and it still wouldn't have appreciably affected the box office. Anime News Service also reported of how Miramax went as far as to test a wide release in Minnesota. On their site they posted three stories which covered news of the test , a list which included the additional theaters in the state and a small but important post from a newsgroup .