Weekend projections: The Boy and the Heron headed to record-breaking opening

December 10, 2023

The Boy and the Heron will have the best North American opening ever for a film by Hayao Miyazaki, according to GKIDS Sunday-morning projection. The $12.8-million debut for the animated adventure also marks the first time the distributor has topped the box office chart—its previous best was a seventh-place finish for Belle when it opened in January last year.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…

The Boy and the Heron is coming in a little below our Friday-morning prediction, but only by 12%. Given how hard it was to predict, that’s a creditable performance. It’s hard to know how much its appeal is reaching beyond its core audience so far, but it will almost certainly become Miyazaki’s top-grossing film in North America, overtaking Arriety, which pulled in $19.2 million here. Adjusted for inflation, Arrietty made $25.4 million. It’s early days yet, but our model predicts a final domestic gross for The Boy and the Heron of $28 million, so an inflation-adjusted record is in the animation legend’s sights too.

Most notably, perhaps, The Boy and the Heron is the first original anime (not based on a existing IP) to ever top the weekend box office chart.

The other new release to hit the top 10 this weekend was Waitress: The Musical. Its unusual release strategy, with a five-night run starting on a Thursday, meant that we didn’t have a prediction for it going into the weekend, but this is an excellent performance.

Godzilla Minus One is arguably the other standout performer this weekend, with a drop of just 27% on its second weekend. The Japanese monster movie will pass $25 million at the domestic box office today.

All told, ticket sales are spread far and wide this weekend, with the top 10 films all being released by different distributors. The last time that happened was back in November last year. What’s remarkable this time is that only four of the major studios are among those ten: Lionsgate, Universal, Walt Disney, Sony Pictures. The other six are all independent. While we’re not enjoying a huge weekend overall, I’d wager that those six smaller distributors are all celebrating this weekend.

Warner Bros. is also celebrating the early results for Wonka, which launched in 37 international markets this weekend, and will top the chart in 32 of them. In like-for-like markets, the studio reports that Wonka is doing 95% better than Paddington and 50% better than The Greatest Showman. The musical will post a $11.1-million opening in the United Kingdom, $5.2 million in Mexico, $4.4 million in Spain, $3.6 million in Germany, $3.2 million in China, $2.8 million in Japan, and $2.0 million in Brazil. It launches Stateside on Friday, with previews on Thursday.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Filed under: Hayao Miyazaki