‘The Boy and the Heron’, the new film by acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, topped the American box office in its opening weekend, with US$12.8 million grossed.
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As a result, this became the best debut for a Studio Ghibli film, and also the best debut for a Miyazaki film, in the USA.
For comparison purposes, the total American box office of Spirited Away, the 2001 film that made Miyazaki’s name better known in the West and earned him an Oscar, is US$15.2 million.
Furthermore, the production was still US$2.4 million in IMAX format – which represented a solid 20% of the total opening box office in the country.
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In the international market, the film has already accumulated US$84.1 million – including US$56 million from Japan, its country of origin –, totaling a global collection of US$97 million.
As a result, the rest of this weekend’s top 3 in the US was filled by ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’, still strong with US$9.4 million; and ‘Godzilla Minus One’, another Japanese film that grossed US$8.3 million.
Finally, in its second week, the concert documentary Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé dropped from first place to sixth, with US$5 million grossed across the US territory.
