'The Boy And The Heron' Takes Oscar Victory Lap Back To Theaters; Studio Ghibli Extends Max Streaming Deal

After the film takes a return theatrical flight, its streaming roost will be on familiar ground for the studio

How do you live? Well, for Best Animated Feature Academy Award winner The Boy and the Heron, it’s taking a second life in theaters, while where it will spend the next several years of its streaming life have been secured. The Hayao Miyazaki-directed animated masterpiece is returning to theaters on Friday, March 22, and join the Studio Ghibli backlog on Max later this year. The two parties have extended their multiyear licensing deal for streaming exclusively in the United States.

For this run, there will be English-subtitled (to the original Japanese audio) and dubbed screenings. The film’s 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. They come equipped with an introduction featuring Golden Globe-nominated composer Joe Hisaishi, and a featurette glimpsing animator Takeshi Honda's drawing process. Both men were honored at the Annie Awards this year, with Honda winning Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Feature and Hisaishi being honored with a Winsor McCay Award for his “unparalleled achievement and exceptional contributions to animation”. 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 tower that takes him to a new “dreamlike” world where the living and the dead coexist.

“Our subscribers are always looking for unique stories, and we are happy to continue to offer these award-winning, critically acclaimed films and to add The Boy and the Heron to our deep and rich Max content offering,” Elizabeth Bannan Atcheson, Vice President of Content Acquisitions at Warner Bros. Discovery said.

HBO Max’s initial pickup of the Ghibli library was the studio’s first to make its films available for streaming. It was also one of several for what is now Max to have a beefy “more than Warner Bros.” part of its library at its launch in early 2020. It also included the hundreds of episodes of South Park, which are heading to Paramount+ starting with this year's regular episodes before the backlog arrives in 2025 as its deal with Max was not renewed. The streamer also shopped with the BBC, licensing a significant handful of series including Luther, Ghosts, the original The Office, and revival-era Doctor Who and its biggest spinoffs The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. While the BBC deal was only referred to as “multi-year”, the licensing deals made around the same time indicate that the 2005-2022 phase of the Whoniverse that Max houses (except for Class) and the 2023-onward phase that resides on Disney+ may be unified sooner rather than later.

Sources: ScreenRant, Deadline, BBC Studios Press Room