Max Pecks A 'The Boy and the Heron' Streaming Date
The Academy Award-winning film was definitely on the mind of both Ghibli and Max when the deal was extended around the time of the win
Months after securing its streaming home in the United States when Studio Ghibli re-upped with Max to extend one of the streamer’s original content deals prior to its launch as HBO Max in 2020, The Boy and the Heron finally has picked a date to roost. It will come to the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer on September 6.
The Boy and the Heron’s Oscar win for Best Animated Feature maintained the distinction that director Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have been the only director and studio to win the award for 2D-animated films in the 23 years the award has been given. That only previous time was for Spirited Away in 2003, the second year of the award. The extension of the deal with Max came shortly after the win, boosting its profile even more than the legendary status the studio already had and making such deal of greater importance.
The semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film is centered on Mahito Maki in the midst of the Pacific War, having to face a move to the countryside following the death of his mother and his father’s subsequent remarriage. Nearby he finds an abandoned, secluded and ancient tower that is home to a mischievous gray heron and takes him to a new “dreamlike” world where the living and the dead coexist. Guided by that heron, the ensuing epic journey allows him to uncover the secrets of this world, and the truth about himself. Its English dub cast included Robert Pattinson, Karen Fukuhara, Gemma Chan, Christian Bale, Mark Hamill, Florence Pugh, Willem Dafoe, Dave Bautista, Barbara Goodson, and Dan Stevens.
The Boy and the Heron was produced by Studio Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki and was scored by Miyazaki staple Joe Hisaishi. It’s the highest-grossing film yet for international distributor GKids, with U.S. box-office earnings of $46.8 million. Ghibli’s international streaming home, Netflix, has yet to give the film an arrival date.
Source: Variety