Miyazaki Achieves Career First

Anime film maker, 82, reaches No. 1 in North America
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 10, 2023 2:15 PM CST
The Boy and the Heron Gives Miyazaki a Career First
This image released by GKIDS shows 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."   (Studio Ghibli/GKIDS via 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 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 theaters and the first original anime to do so. The film, which is playing in subtitled and dubbed versions, is also the first fully foreign film to land atop the domestic box office this year, the AP reports.

Miyazaki's movies have often been enormous hits in Japan and Asia but have made less of a mark in North America. 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 was expected to be Miyazaki's swan song. But 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 working on another film. The Boy and the Heron has been hailed as one of the best films of the year. Featuring an English dub voice cast including Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, and Mark Hamill, it 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.

Below are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

  1. The Boy and the Heron, $12.8 million.
  2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, $9.4 million.
  3. Godzilla Minus One, $8.3 million.
  4. Trolls Band Together, $6.2 million.
  5. Wish, $5.3 million.
  6. Renaissance, A Film by Beyoncé, $5 million.
  7. Napoleon, $4.2 million.
  8. Waitress: The Musical, $3.2 million.
  9. Animal, $2.3 million.
  10. The Shift, $2.2 million.
(More box office stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X