Sight&Sound - 04.2020

16 | Sight&Sound | April 2020

Box office had reached £538,000 after 31 days

(roughly 65 per cent from the subtitled version,

35 per cent dubbed). In Japan, Weathering with You

grossed $126 million – sensational, but still a long

way short of the $235 million Your Name made.

National Amusements may face competition

from other anime distributors – particularly as

Sony now owns Manga. Its trump card is that it

only acquires theatrical rights, leaving its licensers

to control ancillary platforms, including digital

and Blu-ray. Dobbin says that with anime “the

margin isn’t great” and may not be worth it for a

company that doesn’t also own cinemas. “This is

really interesting for us in terms of bringing more

diverse product into our cinemas,” he says. “And

particularly bringing in a younger audience.”

Killer Parasite

With a UK debut of £1.09 million – £1.40 million

including previews – Parasite is the first foreign-

language film to earn more than £1 million in its

opening weekend since Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto in

January 2007. After ten days, Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-

winner had amassed £5.09 million in the UK,

overtaking Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001, £5.

million) to become the third-biggest foreign-

language film of all time at the UK box office,

behind only The Passion of the Christ (2004, £11.

million) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001,

£9.37 million). A huge total beckons.

By Charles Gant

National Amusements never intended to be a

film distributor. The Massachusetts-based cinema

owner, which operates as Showcase in the UK,

became a distributor by default when it agreed

to show a selection of Laurel and Hardy double

bills in its UK cinemas in June 2015, coinciding

with Stan Laurel’s 125th birthday. With very

limited release costs, the operator saw a way to

extend audience choice and turn a modest profit.

Meanwhile, James Dobbin, the chain’s

director of event cinema, spotted an opportunity.

Japanese anime Dragon Ball Z was doing

“amazing numbers” in the company’s cinemas

in Argentina, but no distributor was offering it

for the UK. Dobbin licensed the title and released

it in October 2015, grossing a nifty £196,000.

National Amusements is now the UK’s leading

distributor of anime titles, licensing product from

two suppliers: Manga Entertainment, based in

London, supplies franchise films, such as Dragon

Ball and My Hero Academia; All the Anime,

based in Glasgow, supplies original content

from signature directors. National Amusements

relies on the expertise of these two companies

to decide which titles to show in cinemas.

While National Amusements scored its best

ever result with a franchise title, Dragon Ball

Super: Broly (2018), the release of Your Name in

November 2016 was a breakthrough. An original

conception by Shinkai Makoto, Your Name

grossed £611,000 in UK cinemas – at the time, the

biggest ever total for a non-Studio Ghibli anime.

For Shinkai’s follow-up, Weathering with You,

Dobbin expected an inherited audience. But

the licenser insisted National Amusements

match the US release date, 17 January; and in

January, British cinemas are traditionally full

of upscale dramas chasing Bafta and Oscar

glory. National Amusements has allowed

cinemas to book Weathering with You whenever

it could be slotted in – Dobbin says that Vue,

which uses an algorithm booking system

called Opera to help programme its cinemas,

has done especially well at finding slots for

the title, and delivering an audience – one

that skews strongly 18-24 and in London.

THE NUMBERS: WEATHERING WITH YOU

RUSHES

In a competitive month, Shinkai

Makoto’s romantic fantasy has

shown just how firmly anime’s

popularity is established in the UK

INDUSTRY

JAPANESE ANIME TITLES AT THE UK BOX OFFICE

Film Year Gross

Spirited Away £1.10m 2003

Dragon Ball Super: Broly £1.01m 2019

Howl’s Moving Castle £852,000 2005

Ponyo £772,000 2010

The Wind Rises £753,000 2014

Your Name £611,000 2016

Weathering with You £538, 000 2020

Arrietty £421,000 2011

When Marnie Was There £308,000 2016

Mary and the Witch’s Flower £290,000 2018

Includes Ireland. Source: Comscore

IN PRODUCTION

» The first film from Terence Davies since

his 2016 Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet

Passion also takes a poet as its subject.

Benediction will chronicle the life of

Siegfried Sassoon, whose poems

so vividly captured the hell of the

trenches in World War I. Dunkirk’s

Jack Lowden is lined up to star and

shooting will commence in the spring.

» Pedro Almodóvar (pictured) is

making his first English-language

feature – A Manual for Cleaning Women,

based on American writer Lucia Berlin’s

posthumously published collection of 43 short

stories loosely inspired by her itinerant life.

» Ruben Ostlund’s follow-up to his 2017

Palme d’Or-winning satire of the art world

The Square will be Triangle of Sadness.

This time the fashion world and the super-

rich are the objects of his lampooning

gaze. His first English-language feature

will focus on a pair of models and their

journey from a luxury yacht to a deserted

island where all hierarchies are upturned.

Woody Harrelson will star alongside newcomers

Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean.

» After an intense bidding war at Sundance,

Netflix has acquired Ava DuVernay’s

forthcoming documentary on the rapper Nipsey

Hussle, who was murdered last year. DuVernay

is also developing a big-screen adaptation

of the DC comic-book series New Gods.

Compiled by Nicholas Kouhi

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£538,

UK box office total for

Weathering with You

65% from

subtitled

version

35% from

dubbed

version