North American anime distributor Funimation announced on Thursday that it has acquired the rights to screen the Dragon Ball Super: Broly film in theaters in the United States and Canada in January 2019. It has also acquired the film's home entertainment, video on demand, and broadcast rights, as part of its distribution agreement with producer Toei Animation and the film's international distributor Twentieth Century Fox.

Funimation is one of the sponsors for Dragon Ball North America Tour 2018 with Bandai Collectibles to market the film. The tour will travel to seven cities in the United States and Canada, starting with a Comic-Con International panel at San Diego on July 19.

The film will open in Japan on December 14 . Earlier this week, original manga creator Akira Toriyama provided a new comment for the film:

Everyone, do you know who Broly is? He appeared only in past anime films, and is a ridiculously strong Saiyan. I am told I only drew his design; at that time I was mostly uninvolved with the anime, and so I completely forgot the details. Even now it seems Broly is still very popular not just in Japan, but overseas as well, and because of that, the supervisors suggested, "Why don't we make the movie about Broly this time?" At that time I was shown the film, and I felt that it would become really interesting depending on how it's arranged, so we started talking immediately about including [Broly] into the Dragon Ball Super series. In order to not disappoint Broly fans, I was conscious of Broly's past image, while also giving him new aspects, and I think he ended up as a fascinating Broly. Of course, the film won't just show amazing battles — it will also show what kind of fate Goku, Vegeta, and Broly will follow when they meet; how the Frieza Army is connected; and the history of the Saiyans — the content of the film is dramatic and has a huge scale. That greatest Saiyan, Broly, appears!

There will be lots of other content that will be included for all the fans, so please look forward to it and wait a little longer until it is complete!!

The film will star Masako Nozawa as Goku. Other voice cast members without announced roles include: Ryo Horikawa, Ryusei Nakao, Bin Shimada, Aya Hisakawa, Toshio Furukawa, Takeshi Kusao, Kouichi Yamadera, Masakazu Morita, and Katsuhisa Houki.

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama is writing the script and designing the characters. Tatsuya Nagamine ( One Piece Film Z ) is directing the film, Naohiro Shintani is serving as animation director, and Kazuo Ogura is serving as art director. Norihito Sumitomo is composing the music, Rumiko Nagai is the color designer, Naotake Oota is in charge of special effects, and Kai Makino is the CG director. Toei is distributing the film in collaboration with 20th Century Fox.

Dragon Ball Super premiered in Japan in July 2015 on Fuji TV and other channels, and ended on March 25. Toriyama confirmed in his comments that the show is ending "for now." The FunimationNow, Crunchyroll, and AnimeLab streaming platforms all streamed the series with English subtitles, as episodes aired in Japan. Funimation's English dub of the anime premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami block on January 7, 2017. Funimation posted the first 39 dubbed episodes to its streaming service in December, and is launching additional 13-episode batches two weeks after the final episode of the batch airs on Toonami.

Source: Press release