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The Boy and the Heron Opens at #1 in the U.S. With US$12 Million
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The film has been nominated for Best International Filmmaker for Hayao Miyazaki at the Astra Film & Creative Arts Awards. The film additionally won the Best Animation award for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards on Sunday. The film also won the Animated Feature award from the Boston Society of Film Critics on Sunday.
GKIDS licensed the film, and released it in North American theaters on Friday, with preview engagements on November 22. Screenings include the English dub alongside screenings with Japanese audio with English subtitles.
The film opened in Japan on July 14, and sold 1.003 million tickets and earned about US$13.2 million in its first three days in Japan. The film sold 1.353 million tickets and earned 2.149 billion yen (about US$15.53 million) in its Friday-Monday long weekend (July 17 was the Marine Day holiday in Japan). The Boy and the Heron has earned a cumulative total of 8,333,397,800 yen (about US$55.60 million). It is the #74 highest-grossing film ever in Japan.
The film is the first Studio Ghibli film to get a simultaneous IMAX release. The film is also screening in Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema, and DTS:X.
The film had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), as the event's opening film on September 7 at Roy Thomson Hall. This marked the first time the festival opened with an animated film as well as the first time for a Japanese film. The San Sebastian Film Festival (SSIFF) screened the European premiere in Donostia-San Sebastián's Kursaal Auditorium in Spain on September 22 after the event's opening gala. This marked Miyazaki's fourth film to screen at SSIFF, and the first time his film participated at the event's Official Selection. The festival honored Miyazaki with the Donostia Award for career achievement. The film opened the 2023 Animation Is Film Festival, which ran at Hollywood's TCL Chinese 6 Theatres from October 18 to October 22. The Independent Film Festival Boston screened the film on October 23. The Miami Film Festival's Gems 2023 event screened the film on November 4 at Silverspot Cinema 12.
Miyazaki is credited with the original work, in addition to directing the film and writing the script. Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro) composed the music. Kenshi Yonezu (Chainsaw Man, My Hero Academia, March comes in like a lion) performs the theme song "Chikyūgi" (Globe).
The film earned an estimated US$11 million in its first three days in the U.S. box office. Box Office Mojo recorded the film's opening weekend earnings at US$11,419,975. The film opened in 2,308 theaters.
The film ranked at #1 at the U.S. box office on December 4, 6, and 7.
Godzilla Minus One became the foreign film with the highest opening weekend so far in the United States this year, surpassing the US$10.1 million opening weekend earnings of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc in March.
The film opened in U.S. theaters on December 1.
Godzilla Minus One opened in Japan on November 3 ("Godzilla Day"), which was the anniversary of the first Godzilla film's November 3, 1954 release. The new film screened at The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) as the closing film of this year's event on November 1.
The film sold 648,600 tickets for 1,041,193,460 yen (about US$6.93 million) in its first three days in the Japanese box office. The film sold 14.7% more tickets and earned 22.8% more in its first three days than the last live-action Japanese Godzilla film, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Godzilla, did in its first three days in 2016.
Ryunosuke Kamiki plays protagonist Kōichi Shikishima, and Minami Hamabe plays heroine Noriko Ōishi. (The two also lead the cast of NHK's ongoing weekday morning series Ranman.) Other cast members include Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Andō, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.
Source: Box Office Mojo
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