Three old Studio Ghibli animations have ranked top of the weekend box office numbers for three straight weekends, a movie information service company said Tuesday.
According to Kogyo Tsushinsha, "Spirited Away" (2001) ranked first by number of audience members at movie theaters on Saturdays and Sundays, followed by "Princess Mononoke" (1997) and "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" (1984), all directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Film distributor Toho Co. said it consulted with Ghibli as it wanted to help movie theaters short on films because of delays in new releases due to the novel coronavirus. As a result, four Ghibli animations, including 2006's "Tales from Earthsea" directed by Miyazaki's eldest son Goro, were re-released on June 26, and are showing at 375 screens nationwide as of Tuesday.
"Spirited Away" had earned box-office revenue of a record 30.8 billion yen as of April this year.
According to Toho, the four anime re-releases have drawn about 448,000 people to theaters as of Sunday, bringing in box-office revenue of about 493 million yen.
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