Box Office Report: The Boy and the Heron Breaks Records

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 11, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | December 11, 2023 |

When Hayao Miyazaki announced what was going to be his final film before retirement (he changed his mind), he decided to go down a different path in marketing it. How Do You Live? was dropped into Japanese cinemas with no trailer or synopsis. Its sole selling point? It’s Hayao Miyazaki, what more do you want? It worked, with the film becoming the fourth highest-grossing title of 2023 in Japan.

Now, it’s arrived on American shores. There’s a new title — The Boy and the Heron — a starry voice cast, and an actual plot for people to check out before seeing it. But the magic was still there because Studio Ghibli is an iconic company and Miayazki is no ordinary director. The GKids release earned $12.8 million in its opening weekend, allowing it to take the number one spot. That makes it, believe it or not, the first original anime production to top the domestic box office. Anime does well in American cinemas, far more so than it gets credit for, but this is still a huge deal. Disney struggled to get people to care about its latest animation, Wish, but The Boy and the Heron dominated because Miyazaki films still feel incredibly special. They also demand a big screen. This is my favourite film of 2023 so I’m obviously happy about this.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes stayed at number two, and has $135.6 million domestically after a month. Things weren’t so strong for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, which fell five places to number six, thanks to a stark 77.1% drop in attendance from its opening week. It was an Event in week one, less so in week two.

At number eight is Waitress: The Musical, the pro-shot of the popular Broadway musical written by Sara Bareilles. Pro-shots of stage shows sadly don’t get a ton of attention or major theatrical releases outside of live events such as National Theatre Live or the Met’s showings of operas. So, it’s heartening to see Waitress fans come out and get this to a $2.56 million opening from 1,214 theatres.

Tis the season for Christmas re-releases. Die Hard was put into 1,355 theatres and earned $923,000, while Love Actually grossed $280,000 from 927 cinemas.

One of the most hotly hyped awards favourites of the season is Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ adaptation of the Alasdair Gray novel. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and has fired Emma Stone to the forefront of the Best Actress category once more. Searchlight opened it in nine theatres and earned an impressive $644,000 for their fortunes. I will be curious to see how this one does when they open it wide because that is not an easy sell to general audiences.

Ava DuVernay’s Origin, an ensemble drama based on the non-fiction book of the same name, opened in two theatres to $117,063.

This coming week sees the release of the Korean drama Concrete Utopia, the Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest, and the harrowing origin story of a slave-owning chocolatier turned child torturer, Wonka.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.