GKIDS announced on Thursday that it has licensed Makoto Shinkai’s new anime film Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko). The film will have an “awards qualifying” theatrical run this year, with a broader theatrical release slated for early 2020 with both English subtitles and English-dubbed screenings.
The film will open in Japan on July 19. Shinkai confirmed that the film will get a worldwide release, and releases have already been decided for North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.
GKIDS describes the film:
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hokoda runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hokoda meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strongwilled girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky…
Shinkai is credited with the original work, and is also directing and writing the film’s scripts for CoMix Wave Films. Masayoshi Tanaka (your name., anohana, The Anthem of the Heart) is designing the characters, Atsushi Tamura(The Cat Returns, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin) is the animation director, and Hiroshi Takiguchi (The Garden of Words, Ajin) is the art director. STORY inc. is credited as producer, and TOHO will distribute the film. RADWIMPS are performing the film’s theme song and providing the music for the film. Shinkai is also penning a novel adaptation of the film that will be available digitally and in print on July 18.
The film will star Kotaro Daigo as Hokoda Morishima and Nana Mori as Hina Amano. (Note: last name romanizations are not confirmed.)
Shinkai’s your name. film opened in Japan in August 2016, and has become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, the second highest-grossing Japanese film, and the second highest-grossing anime film, with earnings of more than 25 billion yen (about US$225 million). Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing anime film, having earned more than an estimated US$355 million.