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Studio Ghibli Signs Cooperation Deal with Chinese Company Alibaba for Animation Production, Immersive Exhibitions

Studio Ghibli signed a cooperation deal with Chinese entertainment company Alibaba Pictures for various projects, including animation production, immersive exhibitions, and business plans for Hayao Miyazaki's latest feature film The Boy and the Heron (Kimi-tachi wa Dō Ikiru ka).

Alibaba Pictures president Li Jie traveled to Japan on January 5 to meet with Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki to sign the deal. They reached a preliminary strategic agreement for immersive exhibitions of Miyazaki's works, with Creative Corporation managing on-site implementation. They are planning an exhibition in Shanghai later this year.

Studio Ghibli has been screening Miyazaki's films in China for the first time over the past few years, including My Neighbor Totoro in 2018, Spirited Away in 2019, Ponyo in 2020, Castle in the Sky in May 2023, and Porco Rosso last November.

Alibaba Pictures is part of Alibaba Group, which was established in China in 1999 as a technology-based business.

The Boy and the Heron won the Best Motion Picture - Animated category at the 81st Golden Globes Awards earlier this month. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists gave it the Best Animated Film award in its EDA Awards on December 31. The 78th Mainichi Film Awards announced ahead of its February 14 ceremony that the film will receive the Noburou Oofuji Award, which honors animated works that offer new forms of creative expression. The film also received nominations from the Annie Awards (for animated feature, directing, and writing) and the British Academy Film Awards (for animated film).

The film has been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film in the 96th Academy Awards.

The film opened in Japan on July 14, and sold 1.003 million tickets and earned about US$13.2 million in its first three days in Japan. The film sold 1.353 million tickets and earned 2.149 billion yen (about US$15.53 million) in its Friday-Monday long weekend (July 17 was the Marine Day holiday in Japan). It is the #71 highest-grossing film ever in Japan, and the third highest-grossing domestic film in Japan in 2023 with an 8.66 billion yen (about US$61.4 million) gross.

GKIDS licensed The Boy and the Heron, and released it in North American theaters on December 8, with preview engagements on November 22. Screenings include the English dub alongside screenings with Japanese audio with English subtitles. The film ranked at #1 in its opening weekend in the U.S. box office, with an earning of US$12,836,313 in its first three days. Variety reported that the film is the "first original anime production" to top the U.S. box office.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter (Patrick Brzeski), China.org (Zhang Rui)