http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=18344
"But with Kawajiri, we were able to get him to tell the story in a more traditional western way. All the 'Spirited Away' and all the ones that have gone on have not really rocketed hugely overseas because in our opinion, they're not as accessible in the story. Visually, they're phenomenal and we love it but it's story for us and the Japanese don't necessarily have happy endings. So it was a bit of a trial of getting this thing done but it turned out really interesting, designed totally for the DVD market. We had no theatrical ambitions other than in Europe we'll go, in France and a few other places. It was our attempt to try to take a hybrid so to speak and see if we could pull it off. We're out there now and the results have been pretty interesting."