@m00n:
If they were only interested in the new material and the old fans anyway, why would they have made these movies?
The same reason Hunter X Hunter re-animated it's old material rather than just starting its new anime on the chimera ant arc. Because it's been a decade and the old animation looks old, and it's been a generation of an audience. Yes, the longtime fans just want to get to the new stuff, but you can't just take for granted that new fans would automatically know the old stuff.
Plus with Berserk, the Golden Age arc is the heart and core of the whole thing, and stands alone best out of everything. And now, with that done.. And now, when they DO have more material, the first chunk of it isn't really awkward in comparison (with different voices, style, animation, music, etc.)
And it's still a big new marketing push and advertisement for the manga. (It also allowed tie ins into other commercial properties… such as Guts and Griffith armors being in Dragon's Dogma.) Yes, it's not going to magically balloon by a million copies like the most popular shonen titles, but I'm sure it did get at least some new attention.
It's not exatly boom years for the anime industry anymore, where they just do projects that have no chance to break even. I think they were hopeing for much more than just a new series that would be bought by a few fans in their 40ies and 50ies. I believe they wanted a big revival, but it didnt happen.
We don't know what their exact goals or standards were. Yes, obviously they wanted it to be a big hit… but they also made the last movie the equivalent of NC-17, so they weren't expecting box office on that. It's just there for the long term project.
Again, they did the three movies first because it gave a special kind of exposure, and an excuse to get through the old material faster. Had they done that story as OVAs, then the audience WOULD expect 10-12 hours of super high quality animation (plus the first three volumes of Black Knight material) which... wouldn't ultimately get them much further than where they were 15 years ago. As movies, they got through the core of the story fast and in about 4 hours, and they can now move onto the material that fans, new and old, want.
There are a lot of people interested in seinen manga today that were kids or young teenagers 7-10 years ago. They were the main target audience for the movies I think. The volume sales are still good, compared to other series out there but they would have been just as good without pouring millions into this movie series.
The movies will make their money just fine after dvd/blu sales, (In japan and stateside) plus soundtracks, artbooks, and more. They've been a big hit stateside for forever, back in the day Media Blasters was going to personally help finance more of it to get more series.
Yes, the manga sales haven't boosted by huge numbers, but there IS more of a presence for the franchise than there has been for a while… and I'm sure they're going to at least attempt another OVA or two... since the next part of the story should be what people really go for.
I'm sure they were aware that the old retelling of already animated material in NC-17 format wasn't going to be a huge financial success... but they had to get through that first regardless.