Crunchyroll, Sony Pictures’ anime division, has acquired the international film distribution rights to the next film from “Your Name” and “Suzume” director Makoto Shinkai in all countries outside of Japan and India.
The title, plot details and release date of the film, which will be Shinkai’s eighth feature project, remain under wraps.
Shinkai made his feature debut in 2004 with the dystopian drama “The Place Promised in Our Early Days” but began rising to prominence as one of Japan’s most acclaimed filmmakers with his 2007 melancholic romantic drama “5 Centimeters per Second.”
Then, in 2016, he broke through internationally with “Your Name,” a romantic fantasy about a teen boy in Tokyo and a teen girl in the country who switch bodies, changing each other’s lives as they discover that their body-swapping stretches across time and space and is the key to saving the residents of the girl’s town from a meteor strike.
“Your Name” became a smash hit, grossing $400 million worldwide and setting a then-record as the highest grossing Japanese film of all time until the release of “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” in 2020. It became the start of Shinkai’s “Disaster Trilogy” as his subsequent films, “Weathering With You” and “Suzume,” also explored Japan’s relationship with natural disasters through the relationships and coming-of-age of their young protagonists.
“Suzume,” which was released in 2023, grossed $314 million worldwide and became the first anime film since Hayao Miyazaki’s legendary “Spirited Away” to premiere in competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Crunchyroll also handled the film’s U.S. and international release, as “Suzume” went on to earn Shinkai a Golden Globe nomination.
Since the release of “Suzume,” Crunchyroll has become an increasingly vital part of Sony’s global theatrical footprint, serving as a major exporter of anime from Japan to theaters around the world. Last year, Crunchyroll ushered “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” to a new record as the highest grossing anime film of all time with $793 million worldwide. $543.5 million of that gross came from territories where Sony and Crunchyroll handled distribution.
