news culture Suzume shakes up the box office, a record first weekend for the Studio Ghibli heir
Suzume is a critical success, but also a very strong start at the international box office.
It’s a nice start. Suzume earned $5 million at the US box office in its first weekend, finishing seventh. A figure consistent with Sony’s estimates. For comparison Shinkai’s previous anime film, The Children of Time
On April 18, Crunchyroll also reported that for the second time in history, a Japanese animated film has grossed more in China than in its country of origin; actually on that same date Suzume earned a total of 14.48 billion yen (US$107.66 million) at the Japanese box office. versus 752 million yuan (US$112.01 million) in 25 days since its release in China. The global total for the feature film now exceeds $290 million, and Suzume currently ranks as the fourth most profitable animated film in the world.
critical success
Suzume is the latest film from Makoto Shinkai, the director of Your Name. The story is set in 2010s Japan, where we follow the teenage girl Suzume who, on her way to high school, is challenged by a handsome young man who asks her if she hasn’t seen a door recently. Driven by her desire to see the boy again, she goes to meet him and finally comes across a mysterious door, which she decides to open. Many earthquakes then follow. The feature film was presented at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023, a premiere for an animated film since 2002 with Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. In France, as internationally, the critics are persuaded; “The Japanese Makoto Shinkai sublimates animation in a feature film, carried by the beauty of gesture and movement, against the background of disaster preparedness
