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Shinkai's 'your name.' Film Earns 14.56 Billion Yen to Top Last Samurai, E.T. in Japan

Update: Shinkai's your name. sold 513,000 tickets for 700 million yen (US$6.7 million) over Saturday and Sunday. (Monday was a national holiday.) Frozen was #1 for five weeks before being replaced by Detective Conan: Dimensional Sniper — only to return to the top for seven more weeks. Shinkai's your name. is now projected to possibly approach 20 billion yen (US$200 million). Source: Eiga.com

Makoto Shinkai's your name. (Kimi no Na wa.) anime film has, as of Tuesday, October 11, earned 14.56 billion yen (about US$140.3 million) in 47 days.

At the Japanese box office, your name. is now the fifth highest-grossing anime film (after Ponyo's 15.50 billion yen or US$152.9 million), the 6th highest-grossing Japanese film, and 11th highest-grossing Japanese or overseas film overall. The film already surpassed the 2013 Japanese box office total of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's The Wind Rises (12.02 billion yen or US$118.6 million). In addition, your name. has now earned more in Japan than The Last Samurai, E.T., Armageddon, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The only anime films to earn more than your name. are Ghibli and Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and Ponyo.

Shinkai's latest film ranked #1 for seven straight weekends since opening. It is already 2016's highest-grossing film in Japan. It had earned 13,020,003,500 yen (about US$127 million) and sold 10,025,897 tickets in 39 days as of Monday, October 3.

The film reached 10 billion yen faster than Disney's Frozen, which closed in Japan after earning 25.4 billion yen in the box office to become Japan's #3 highest-grossing film of all time after Spirited Away and Titanic. Frozen reached 10 billion yen in 37 days while your name. reached the same milestone in 28 days.

The film held its world premiere on July 3 in Los Angeles during Anime Expo, and it is slated to open in 85 countries and regions.

The film's "story of miracles and love" revolves around Mitsuha and Taki. Mitsuha is a female high school student who lives in a rural town nestled deep in the mountains. Her father is the mayor and isn't at home much, and she lives with her elementary school-aged little sister and her grandmother. Mitsuha has an honest personality, but she doesn't like the customs of her family's Shinto shrine, nor does she like her father participating in an election campaign. She laments that she lives in a confined rural town, and yearns for the wonderful lifestyle of living in Tokyo. Taki is a male high school student who lives in central Tokyo. He spends time with his friends, works part-time at an Italian restaurant, and is interested in architecture and fine arts. One day, Mitsuha has a dream where she is a young man. Taki also has a dream where he is a female high school student in a town in the mountains that he has never been to. What is the secret to their dreams of personal experience?

Shinkai also wrote the script for the film. Masashi Ando (Spirited Away, When Marnie Was There, Paprika) served as the animation director and Masayoshi Tanaka (anohana, The Anthem of the Heart, Toradora!) designed the characters. CoMix Wave Inc. animated the film.

The film will reveal its fourth new key visual in various morning newspapers on October 14. The new visual will appear in the Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo, the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun in Osaka, the Chunichi Shimbun in Aichi, the Nishinippon Shimbun in Fukuoka, and the Hokkaido Shimbun in Hokkaido.

[Via Yaraon!]