Hayao Miyazaki‘s Academy Award-winning film “The Boy and the Heron” is still in demand — and soon it will be on-demand via various streaming services.
“The Boy and the Heron” will be available to stream on Netflix everywhere in the world except the U.S. and Japan due to an extended worldwide catalog rights deal between distributors Goodfellas and GKIDS and Japanese studio Studio Ghibli, the streaming king revealed on Thursday. Along with the “Boy and the Heron,” an additional 22 Studio Ghibli films will be available on Netflix, including: “Spirited Away,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” and “My Neighbor Totoro.”
For American audiences, “The Boy and the Heron” will land on Warner Bros. Discovery streamer Max as part of a multi-year agreement with GKIDS to extend the exclusive U.S. film streaming rights for Studio Ghibli. The streamer has been the U.S. home to the Studio Ghibli catalogue since 2020, marking the first time the films were available to stream anywhere in the world.
“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, VP of content acquisitions at Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a March 12 press statement.
Dates for both the Netflix and Max premieres of the film will be announced later in 2024.
“The Boy and the Heron” will be re-released in theaters in North America and Japan prior to its streaming Max debut. The dubbed version featuring voice actors Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, and Florence Pugh will open in U.S. theaters on March 22.
“The Boy and the Heron” additionally will open in theaters in mainland China on April 3 through distributor Alibaba Pictures, which in January 2024 announced a strategic partnership with Studio Ghibli.
“The Boy and the Heron” opened in Japan in July 2023 under the title “How Do You Live?” and had the highest opening-weekend gross for an anime feature, even without a trailer or advertising. The movie then hit international cinemas (sans China) in October 2023, and became the first Studio Ghibli feature to have an IMAX release.
The film marks auteur Miyazaki’s first feature film in 10 years after “The Wind Rises.”
