Miyazaki at the top of the US box office: The Boy and the Heron achieves a historic performance
A first for the filmmaker and Japanese cinema.
It’s a small event: for the first time in his career, Hayao Miyazaki dominates the US box office. His latest jewel, The boy and the heronstarted first this weekend, with $12.8 million in revenue.
A historic performance, since the film thus becomes the first Japanese animated film to dominate the US box office (via Variety). Released for several weeks in the rest of the world, The boy and the heron currently totals nearly $90 million at the worldwide box office, including $56 million from Japan. A score still far from the big hits of Studio Ghibli, namely Spirited away (275 million in 2002) or The Howl’s Moving Castle (235 million in 2005).
Japanese cinema is in great shape across the Atlantic at the moment, since another Japanese film, Godzilla Minus One, is on the podium of the US box office of the weekend! With an additional $8.3 million for its second weekend, the monster has reached $25.3 million at the US box office since its release. The feature film is at $45 million worldwide.
Hunger Games 5 continues its impressive adventure in the rest of American theaters, with an additional 9.4 million dollars in 4th week and already 135 million in the USA since its release, for a worldwide total of 250 million dollars.
Finally, we note that Beyonce is not Taylor Swift. His concert film fell from first to sixth place, with $5 million in week 2 and a dizzying drop in attendance (-77%!). Renaissance is at 28 million dollars at the US box office… very far from Taylor Swift: The Eras Tourwho ended his North American career at 180 million.
