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Anime master’s ‘The Boy and the Heron’ tops box office

Published:Monday | December 11, 2023 | 12:09 AM
Mahito Maki, voiced by Luca Padovan in English and Soma Santoki in Japanese, left, and Grey Heron, voiced by Robert Pattinson in English and Masaki Suda in Japanese, in a scene from Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy And The Heron’.
AP
Mahito Maki, voiced by Luca Padovan in English and Soma Santoki in Japanese, left, and Grey Heron, voiced by Robert Pattinson in English and Masaki Suda in Japanese, in a scene from Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy And The Heron’.

NEW YORK (AP):

For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki’s latest enchantment, The Boy and the Heron, debuted with $12.8 million, according to studio estimates.

The Boy and the Heron, the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and other cherished anime classics, is only the third anime to ever top the box office in US and Canadian theatres and the first original anime to do so. The film, which is playing in both subtitled and dubbed versions, is also the first fully foreign film to land atop the domestic box office this year.

Though Miyazaki’s movies have often been enormous hits in Japan and Asia, they’ve traditionally made less of a mark in North American cinemas. The director’s previous best performer was his last movie, 2013’s The Wind Rises, which grossed $5.2 million in its entire domestic run.

The Boy and the Heron, which earlier collected $56 million in Japan, for years was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song. But just as it was making its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Junichi Nishioka, Studio Ghibli vice president, said the previously retired Miyazaki is still working toward another film. It has been hailed as one of the best films of the year.

Featuring an English dub voice cast including Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Dave Bautista and Mark Hamill, the storyline follows a boy who, after her mother perishes in World War II bombing, is led by a mysterious heron to a portal that takes him to a fantastical realm. In Japan, its title translates to How Do You Live?

Last week’s top film, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, dropped steeply in its second weekend, collecting $5 million, a decline of 76 per cent from its $21 million opening.

That allowed Lionsgate’s still-going-strong Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes to take second place, with an estimated $9.4 million in its fourth weekend of release. The Hunger Games prequel has a domestic haul of $135.7 million.