‘The Boy And The Heron’ Becomes All-Time Highest-Grossing Original Anime In U.S.

It took just 10 days of release for Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron to become the top-grossing original anime film ever released in the United States.

The Miyazaki film landed in third place in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $5.1 million. Its overall domestic total is now $23.1 million. The film had a relatively steep decline of 60%, despite adding 120 screens for a 2,325 screen total.

The overall total bests the previous record holder, The Secret World of Arrietty, which grossed $19.2m in 2012. That film, directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, was a Studio Ghibli release distributed domestically by Disney.

The Boy and the Heron is now 7th on the all-time domestic anime list. Here are the standings:

1. Pokemon: The First Movie: $85.7m
2. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train: $49.5m
3. Pokemon: The Movie 2000: $43.7
4. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero: $38.1m
5. Jujutsu Kaisen 0: $34.5m
6. Dragon Ball Super: Broly: $30.7m
7. The Boy and the Heron: $23.1m

The Boy and the Heron has broken loads of other records, including the highest-grossing release ever for specialty animation distributor GKIDS, the first original anime title ever to reach #1 at the U.S. box office, and the highest-grossing Ghibli release stateside.

The U.S. box office also boasts two other films in the top 10. The fifth weekend of Dreamworks Animation’s Trolls Band Together delivered 5th place with $4m ($88.6m total), while Disney’s Wish ended its fourth weekend in 6th place with $3.2m ($54.2m total).

Next weekend will see the U.S. release of Illumination’s Migration. This means that there will potentially be four animated features in the top 10, a rare occurrence in the domestic marketplace.