‘Weathering With You’ Conquers U.S. Box Office at #2!

It was reported on Thursday in the movie website Box Office Mojo that Makoto Shinkai’s latest film Weathering With You has officially conquered the U.S. Box Office placing itself #2. The “special fan preview” screening immediately got the film to earn U.S.$ 1.5 million.

The special screening preview event happened on Wednesday and Thursday, just a days before the official U.S. screening premiere on Friday. Fans who were able to join in the special screening preview got exclusive bonus content aside from the main film screening. It was also confirmed that screenings for Weathering With You on Friday will be in both original Japanese language with English subtitles and English Dub.

A trailer for the film was released on GKIDS’ official YouTube channel a few weeks ago. You may watch the trailer here.

This specific trailer revealed the official English Dub for the movie. Below contains the complete main voice cast:

Brandon Engman as Hodaka

Ashley Boettcher as Hina

Lee Pace as Suga

Alison Brie as Natsumi

Emeka Guindo as Nagi

Riz Ahmed as Takai

Vinnie Penna as Kimura

Mike Pollock as Yasui

Barbara Goodson as Tachibana

Weathering with You premiered in Japan on July 19, 2019 and immediately conquered box office charts in its first three days, earning US$15.22 million. It had a special North American premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival as part of its Special Presentations Category with screenings on September 8, 10, 14. The movie was submitted for consideration for the Best International Feature Film category for the 92nd Academy Awards. The film was also screened in Anime NYC last November 2019.

The film won the Best Animated Feature Film award during the 13th Asia Pacific Awards last year, which was held in Brisbane, Australia. The other nominees in the said category were the following: Penguin Highway by Hiroyasu Ishida, Mosley by Kirby Atkins, Underdog by Oh Sung Yoon, and The Unseen by Behzad Nalbhadi.

Here is a synopsis about the film as described by GKIDS:

The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong­willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky…

Recently, the nine categories of the 92nd Academy Awards were announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sadly, Weathering With You did not make it to the shortlist for the Best International Feature Film Category (which is also known as the Best International Feature Film category until this year).

Although this seems to be a bit of bad news, there is still hope as the movie is still eligible for Best Animated Feature. Last December 5, the film had its Oscar-qualifying run in Santa Monica, and the movie was screened for one week in the Monica Film Center.

This isn’t the first time that an anime film was nominated in the Oscars. In fact, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated movie masterpiece Princess Mononoke was nominated for the Oscars and was part of the same shortlist category back in 1998.

Aside from Weathering with You, the live-action Hollywood film adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel was nominated and made it to the shortlist for the Visual Effects category.

Weathering With You have not only topped the box office worldwide but has also made it as one of the most top sell-selling light novels in Japan by volume this year.  According to the Oricon’s overall bunko ranking chart, the Weathering With You novel sold around 511, 159 copies in Japan alone. This is the second time that Shinkai has topped the charts in this category, with his first one being the your name. novel that was released three years ago.

Aside from the light novel version, the children’s book version of Weathering With You has also ranked in #1 in the children’s book category last Summer.

It’s no surprise that Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You is at number 1 in the Japanese Box Office last year. It beat the over-all Japanese gross sales of other anime films like Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire and One Piece Stampede.

A few weeks ago, the Japanese film news website Cinema Today released a list of the 10 highest earning films this year. The 2019 Japanese box office consists of two live-action films and six animated films.

Below reveals the complete list:

1.       Weathering With You (14.02 billion yen, about US$129 million, amount as of December 8 2019)

2.       Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (9.37 billion yen, about US$86.2 million)

3.       Kingdom (5.73 billion yen, about US$52.7 million)

4.       One Piece Stampede (5.53 billion yen, about US$50.9 million)

5.       Doraemon the Movie: Nobita’s Chronicle of the Moon Exploration (5.01 billion yen, about US$46.1 million)

6.       Masquerade Hotel (4.64 billion yen, about US$42.7 million)

7.       Dragon Ball Super: Broly (4 billion yen, about US$36.8 million, opened in Japan on December 13, 2018)

8.       Tonde Saitama (3.76 billion yen, about US$34.6 million)

9.       Kioku ni Gozaimasen! (3.6 billion yen, about US$33.1 million, amount as of December 8)

10.   Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution (2.98 billion yen, about US$27.4 million)

Source: Anime News Network