Name, plot and release date have not been announced yet for the ‘Suzume’ and ‘Weathering with You’ director’s new animated film.
Crunchyroll has acquired worldwide theatrical rights to Makoto Shinkai‘s next feature, covering every territory outside Asia plus India, and will co-distribute the film with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Neither company disclosed a title, plot or release date.
In 2023, Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures released Shinkai’s 2022 hit feature Suzume, which grossed more than $300 million worldwide and earned a Golden Globe nomination and seven Annie Award nominations, including Best Feature. It was his third consecutive film to pass 10 million admissions in Japan. Crunchyroll purchased Suzume from Toho at Cannes in 2022.
Shinkai’s two previous features did comparable business and won at home. Your Name became the second-highest-grossing Japanese film after its 2016 release and took Excellent Director of the Year and Screenplay of the Year at the Japan Academy Film Prize, a first for an animated film. Japan submitted Weathering With You in 2019 as its single national entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature.
Shinkai has said the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake reshaped his work, and that all three of those films came out of it. He told AWN in 2024 that it was a turning point for him “as a human and as a creator.”
Crunchyroll operates as a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), both under Tokyo-based Sony Group.
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
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