Makoto Shinkai‘s Weathering With You anime film is getting a limited run of 4DX screenings in the United States beginning on January 31. Regal is listing the screenings with English subtitles, and dubbed screenings will also be available.
The 4DX screenings in the U.S. will feature wind, rain, face air, vibration, motion, lightning, rain storm, and other effects. The film’s 4DX and MX4D screenings in Japan began on September 27.
The film debuted in North America on January 15 and ranked at #2 in the box office in the United States in its first two days. The anime fell to #12 on Friday, and to #14 on Saturday and Sunday. The film earned an estimated US$2,007,523 from Friday to Monday (including the estimated US$276,151 gross for Monday) in 486 theaters, and has earned an estimated total of US$5,053,773 in its first six days.
Weathering With You became the highest-grossing release from the distributor GKIDS after its first two days in event screenings, topping Mary and The Witch’s Flower‘s US$2,418,404.
Fathom Events screened the film in theaters in the United States on January 15 and 16. The screenings were a “Special Fan Preview” with exclusive bonus content before GKIDS opened the film in North America on January 17. The screenings starting last Friday have both English-subtitled screenings and English-dubbed screenings.
GKIDS describes the story:
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka 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, Hodaka 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…
Weathering With You opened in 359 theaters and 448 screens in Japan last July, and is now the #7 highest-earning domestic film of all time in Japan and was the highest-grossing film in Japan in 2019. The film has earned 14.02 billion yen (about US$129 million) in Japan as of December 8.
The anime won the Audience Award at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles in October, and also won the Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Australia on November 21. The film received a nomination in the Best Animated Independent Feature category for the 47th Annual Annie Awards. The Annie Awards ceremony will be held on January 25.
The film was submitted for consideration for both the Animated Feature Film category and the Best International Feature Film category for the 92nd Academy Awards, but it did not receive a nomination in either category. The film is also nominated for Animation of the Year for the Japan Academy Film Prize Association’s 43rd annual awards this year.
Sources: Email correspondence, Regal