Studio Ghibli is toasting a successful gamble this week, as the latest film directed and produced by esteemed co-founders Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki, respectively, marked a successful opening despite almost no marketing or studio-generated hype.
Released in Japan as How Do You Live (Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka; international title The Boy and the Heron), the pic scored $13.2 million USD in its first weekend, and reportedly set a new three-day opening record for IMAX in Japan with a $1.7M take across 44 screens. The numbers show that Miyazaki’s name is a powerful enough draw in itself, even combined with such an enigmatic release strategy and somewhat mixed reviews from early reporting critics.
Miyazaki’s last feature film, Oscar-nominated The Wind Rises, grossed ¥11.6 billion ($113M USD) and was the No. 1 film at the Japanese box office for 2013.
Titled after the 1937 novel by Yoshino Genzaburo, How Do You Live / The Boy and the Heron takes a fanciful departure from that introspective coming-of-age piece. The movie centers on a boy named Mahito whose mother is killed in the WWII fire bombings of Tokyo. Moving out of the city and struggling to adjust to his grief, a new stepmother (his mother’s sister) and a half-sibling on the way, Mahito is lured by a talking heron into a fantastical journey through an alternate world to rescue what he has lost.
Despite his multiple declarations of retirement, Suzuki has shared that he believes The Boy and the Heron will be the great director’s last feature, referring to the film as a farewell and a legacy for Miyazaki-san’s grandson.
North American audiences will be able to make their own assessments of The Boy and the Heron when GKIDS releases the pic later this year.
[Source: Deadline, BoxOfficeMojo]
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