The Boy And The Heron Headed Back to US and Japanese Cinemas
The Boy and the Heron won Hayao Miyazaki his second Oscar at this year's ceremony. In celebration of the film's triumph, it will be returning to cinemas both in the United States and Japan. The celebratory run will start in Japan on March 20, and unusually will include a release of the film's English dub.
GKIDS Films will bring the film back to cinemas in the US beginning March 22. The special Bring Back screenings will include exclusive bonus content featuring an introduction from Golden Globe-nominated composer Joe Hisaishi and a recorded drawing session from Supervising Animator Takeshi Honda, who won an Annie Award for Best Character Animation. The encore screenings will take place both with original Japanese language and with the English dub. The English version features the voices of Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh.
The Boy And The Heron is GKIDS Films most successful release to date and gave them their first Box Office number one. It is also the highest-grossing Studio Ghibli film in North America. It has earned over $46 million and has become the highest grossing original anime movie. It was also the first Ghibli film to be released in IMAX.
In Japan, it grossed US$13.2 million (¥1.8 billion) in its opening weekend, giving Ghibli their biggest ever opening, surpassing the ¥1.5 taken by Howl's Moving Castle. It has gone one to take more than $56 million, and taking its worldwide total to over $167 million.
The film made its international debut at the Opening Night Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival. All five screenings sold out in record time and the film placed in the top three in the TIFF People's Choice Awards. In addition to the Oscar, the film also won Best Animated Feature at the BAFTA Film Awards, The Golden Globes and several prestigious Critics awards including the New York Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association. It won two Annie Awards and was recognised by the National Board of Review as a top film of 2023. Additionally, composer Joe Hisaishi was nominated for Best Score by the Golden Globes and the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He was also awarded a Winsor McCay career achievement award at the Annies.
It was Studio Ghibli's second Oscar, from a total of 7 nominations. It was the first win for producer Toshio Suzuki. It was also the first Oscar win for GKIDS, who have been nominated 13 times in the Best Animated Feature Category. Miyazaki was also awarded a Governor's Award Special Academy's Honorary Award in 2014 for his exceptional contribution to cinema.
GKIDS Films has renewed their deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, to ensure that Max (formerly HBO Max) will continue to be the streaming home of the Studio Ghibli catalogue in the US. The renewed deal includes the streaming rights to The Boy And The Heron. Right now, we're not sure just when that might be- we would assume the Blu-Ray/DVD release will come first.
Get tickets or find your nearest screening here.
