Miyazaki Hayao’s Oscar-Winning ‘The Boy and the Heron’ to Release in Mainland China Cinemas

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oscar-winning Japanese animation film “The Boy and the Heron” earned a chart-topping $34.9 million between Friday and Sunday at the mainland China box office. Over its full five-day opening run, it took an even more spectacular $73 million. China was the last major territory to play the Studio Ghibli-produced fantasy in cinemas – it released in its native Japan in July and is imminently headed to streaming in many other territories – but that did not stop Chinese audiences from lapping it up. While most films release in China on a Friday, “The Boy and the Heron” was given a Wednesday outing in order to capture momentum from the Thursday-to-Saturday Qingming public holiday. Consultancy firm Artisan reports that it earned RMB248 million ($34.9 million) over the conventional Friday-to-Sunday weekend.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Without significant new challengers, spooky Korean drama “Exhuma” held on at the top of the South Korea box office chart for the seventh consecutive weekend. Its cumulative passed the symbolic $80 million mark. The lack of strong new release titles also meant that aggregate weekend box office in Korea slipped to a lowly $5.59 million. The Choi Min-sik-starring “Exhuma” dropped roughly 50% week-on-week to record $1.59 million between Friday and Sunday, and a 28% market share, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Worldwide box office is headed for a marginal decline of 3% in 2024, a setback that follows three years of recovery from a pandemic era low in 2020. Gower Street Analytics, a distribution and exhibition industry consultancy, forecasts that worldwide box office this year will aggregate at $32.3 billion, down by more than $1 billion from the $33.9 billion earned in 2023. “A $32.3 billion global box office in 2024 would represent an approximate 5% decrease year-on-year (a 3% decrease at current exchange rates) from 2023. The 2024 revised estimate is 18% lower than an average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019),” Gower Street said. The forecast comes on the eve of CinemaCon, the annual National Association of Theater Owners convention, being held in Las Vegas April 8-11. While Gower Street’s forecast is for a marginal decline, it actually represents a more than $1 billion improvement on its previous $31.5 million forecast for 2024.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oscar-winning Japanese animation “The Boy and the Heron” opened its wings in mainland Chinese theaters in midweek and soared to the top of the box office. Data from multiple local tracking sources show the Miyazaki Hayao-directed fantasy-adventure accounting for more than half of all cinema revenues on both Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday it garnered $13.8 million, according to estimates from Ent Group. By 6.30pm on Thursday, ticket sales firm Maoyan was showing the title as having grown its two-day running total to RMB254 million or $35.2 million. While films mostly open on Fridays in China, “The Boy and the Heron” was given a Wednesday outing in order to play into the three-day Qingming public holiday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Japanese broadcaster TV Tokyo and Taiwan-based LGBT streaming platform GagaOOLala will this month release “At 25.00 in Akasaka,” a live-action drama series in the popular Boys Love (BL) genre. Based on a popular manga by Natsuno Hiroko, the underlying comic has sold over 1.2 million copies. The series explores the romance between a renowned actor and an aspiring talent, cast as leads in a BL drama that wins the hearts of audiences worldwide.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Legendary Entertainment’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” had the best opening in China of any Hollywood film this year. It scored $44.6 million (RMB317 million) in mainland Chinese cinemas between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy firm Artisan Gateway. That was a nearly 70% share of the country’s weekend box office. Nationwide, cinemas enjoyed $64.1 million of business, a significant leap from the $39.5 million they earned in the previous weekend.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hankyu Hanshin, parent company of all-female musical theater company Takarazuka Revue, has apologized to the family of an actor who died in September last year. The 25-year-old woman died after being harassed by theatre officials and older members of the company, it was alleged. She was found at or near her condominium in Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, a case which the local police are treating as probable death by suicide. “The two sides have reached a broad agreement on various issues, including compensation,” the Kyodo news agency reported from a press conference held in Osaka on Thursday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran Chinese director Zhang Yimou will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the upcoming edition of the Festival of Far East Film in Italy’s Udine (April 24 – May 2). The lineup will include three films by Zhang: his 2023 political thriller “Under the Light” in its competition section; as well as “To Live” and “Raise the Red Lantern” in its restored classics section. The festival’s total lineup includes 74 films in total – 47 in competition and 28 out of competition) from 11 countries.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief In these culturally sensitive times, having an American director and showrunner on a quintessentially Japanese series is sure to raise the issue of cultural appropriation. But the Dave Boyle-directed “House of Ninjas,” which Netflix launched in February, stands out not only as a hit, but as a seemingly happy blend of East and West. An original story about the last living ninja family in modern times, the show ranked as the streamer’s top non-English show in 16 countries and regions, as well as reached the top ten list in 92 countries.In an interview with Variety, Boyle (“The Man From Reno,” “Big Dreams, Little Tokyo”) said that surprising career left-turns brought him to the series and helped him keep the show authentically Japanese.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Sweet Planet,” a one of the highest-profile China-Europe co-productions of recent years, will air on China Global Television Network from Friday. The six-part culinary documentary is a co-production between millennial-focused global channel operator Insight TV, Netherlands-based production company JOIIN, and CGTN. It explore the culinary and cultural impact of sugar in cooking and food rituals around the world.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Universal’s “The Fall Guy” will open in mainland Chinese cinemas next month, ahead of its debut in the U.S. and star Ryan Gosling’s native Canada. The film is set to release officially in China on April 30.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Acclaimed Chinese film director Chen Daming is expected to direct “The Peking Express,” a book-to-film adaptation of the story of an infamous train robbery that took place 100 years ago. The non-fiction book was written Beijing-based writer and lawyer James Zimmerman and was an ‘Editor’s Choice’ selection by the New York Times. It describes the raid on a luxury express train by Chinese bandits in Shandong Province in 1923 and the ensuing six-week hostage standoff that captivated the world.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ opened on top of the mainland China box office in its first official week of release. But its debut was soft and led the market to one of its quietest weekends of the year. The Universal-DreamWorks Animation picture earned $14.7 million (RMB105 million) between Friday and Sunday, according to data provided by consultancy firm Artisan Gateway.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery is to significantly expand its investment and production of Japanese anime through its existing local studio in Japan. “We have a Japanese anime studio, which has been producing five or ten anime series per year, over the last few years,” said James Gibbons, WBD president of Asia-Pacific. “We’ve approved expansion to take that to more than ten series per year.” The studio has been operational since 2011 and delivered over 80 titles in that span, a mix of high-quality anime, live action series and movies.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Miyazaki Hayao’s “The Boy and the Heron,” which recently won the Oscar for best animated feature film, will head to global streaming giant Netflix later this year, excluding the U.S. and Japan. The hand-drawn, critically acclaimed fantasy adventure film is part of a renewed worldwide catalog deal between Netflix and the Japanese producer Studio Ghibli, sales agent Goodfellas and independent distributor GKids.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s social media, games and video giant Tencent saw 2023 revenues advance by 10% to $84.6 billion (RMB609 billion). But its net profits slid to $16.3 billion (RMB118 billion), down from $26.3 billion a year earlier. The group is directly affected by weakness in the mainland Chinese economy, which has recovered only slowly since the end of the COVID pandemic, and by ongoing regulatory concerns.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Fashion, East-West Asian identities, corporate espionage and romance are on the agenda in “Morning, Paris!,” a new mini-series project being pitched at Series Mania by veteran filmmaker Quentin Lee (“The People I’ve Slept With,” “White Frog”). “’Morning, Paris!’ is a heartfelt comedy about a young modern BIPOC Canadian woman discovering herself in the most romantic city in the world,” says Lee. “Or put another way, it is a limited television series about an aspiring female fashion designer from Vancouver who ends up in Paris Fashion week with a very unlikely companion because she wants to spy on her boss on whom she has a crush.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Previews for Universal Pictures and Dreamworks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” put the Chinese-themed film in fourth place at the mainland China box office, a week ahead of its official theatrical debut. Over the March 15-17 weekend, however, first and second places remained with holdover titles “The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon” and “Dune: Part Two.” Taiwanese crime film “The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon,” already playing on Netflix in territories outside China, topped the mainland China chart for the third successive weekend. According to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, it earned $11.1 million (RMB79.1 million), for a cumulative of $73.2 million (RMB520 million).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Linmon Pictures, one of the most outward-looking mainland Chinese entertainment firms, is preparing premium series “Hate Coin.” The show is being produced in association with Jonathan Wong and Justina Shih’s production company Octagon Metatainment, a Hong Kong-based multimedia studio. “Hate Coin” is based on international best-selling novel “Second Sister,” by successful Hong Kong novelist Chan Ho Kei, whose previous book “The Borrowed” was a crime story that panned five-decades. The story follows the activities of a young woman whose school-age sister appeared to have committed suicide. Suspecting foul play, the woman trams up with a manipulative hacker and cybersecurity expert to try to dig deeper. “What follows is a cat and mouse game through the city of Hong Kong and its digital underground, especially an online gossip platform, where someone has been slandering Siu-Man.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Peter Chan Ho-sun has assembled a starry cast headed by Zhang Ziyi and box office sensation Lei Jiayin for his new feature film “She Has No Name.” The film, which recently completed principal photography, probes the progress of women’s rights in China. “One woman’s suffering gives rise to the revolution of women’s social rights in China,” reads a tagline.