Hayao Miyazaki's THE BOY AND THE HERON Anime Film Making History at the Box Office
With the release Toho’s Godzilla Minus One and Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron, Japan has had an awesome run in the United States this year! Both of them have made box office milestones, which is pretty exciting to see!
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron made history over the weekend as the film grossed nearly $13 million. With that haul, the film now holds the biggest three-day weekend for an original anime to date domestically. The record was previously held by The Secret World of Arrietty.
The Boy and the Heron beat out the latest Hunger Games film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which earned under $10 million at the box office this past weekend. Godzilla Minus One took third place with $8.3 million after an already successful run. That was followed by Trolls 3, and then there’s Disney’s Wish, which made $5.3 million.
The Boy and the Heron is a beautifully made animated film and it’s a story worth watching play out on the big screen. It’s good to see people going out and supporting this film and I wish more people would get out there and watch it. It’s so much better that the pointless drivel that Disney and Pixar have been pumping out.
The Boy and the Heron would’ve done even better if there had been some smart marketing behind the film. They almost didn’t market the movie at all! I’m not sure why Studio Ghibli opted to hold back on the marketing, but had the pushed the film harder, the movie would’ve done even better. But, for lack of marketing, it’s still having a great run at the box office.
The official synopsis for the movie reads: “Through encounters with his friends and uncle, the story follows a teenage boy’s psychological development. He enters a magical world with a talking grey heron after finding an abandoned tower in his new town.”
Did you get a chance to watch The Boy in the Heron? If so, what do you think!?