STUDIO GHIBLI’S

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL

OPENS TO $57,585 BOX OFFICE ON TWO NYC SCREENS

****

#1 FEATURE FILM OPENING OF THE YEAR FOR BOTH

IFC CENTER & ELINOR BUNIN MUNROE FILM CENTER

POPPY HILL OPENS LOS ANGELES AND TORONTO 3/22

EXPANDS TO MULTIPLE N. AMERICAN MARKETS STARTING 3/29

WITH CONTINUED EXPANSION THROUGHOUT APRIL

INFO AT:

WWW.FROMUPONPOPPYHILL.COM

New York, New York – March 18, 2013 – GKIDS’ From Up on Poppy Hill, the highly anticipated new feature from Studio Ghibli opened NYC on two screens with $57,585, making it the second highest per location average for the weekend (after Spring Breakers). The $39,726 opening weekend at IFC puts From Up on Poppy Hill in the top 5 highest grossing features in the history of the complex, and came within $44 of GKIDS’ film The Secret of Kells by, which opened IFC during Oscar weekend in 2010.

The film opens March 22 Los Angeles exclusive at The Landmark, and at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, and expands to four locations in New York. March 29 will be the first significant expansion, with the film set to be on 20+ screens in NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, Boston, Minneapolis and San Diego. Further national expansion will continue throughout April.

From Up on Poppy Hill was directed by Goro Miyazaki from a screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki, won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation, and was the top-grossing Japanese film of 2011. Multiple Academy Award® winner Gary Rydstrom directed the English language version from a script adaptation by Karey Kirkpatrick. Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy executive produced. GKIDS is handling theatrical, home video, television and VOD rights.

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL

From Up on Poppy Hill is the highly anticipated new film from Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and many other animated masterpieces. Written by legendary studio founder Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Goro Miyazaki, From Up on Poppy Hill marks the first feature film collaboration between father and son.

The setting is Yokohama in 1963, and the story centers on an innocent romance beginning to bud between Umi and Shun, two high school kids caught up in the changing times. Japan is picking itself up from the devastation of World War II and preparing to host the 1964 Olympics – and the mood is one of both optimism and conflict as the young generation struggles to throw off the shackles of a troubled past. While the children work together to save a dilapidated Meiji-era club house from demolition, their tentative relationship begins to blossom. But – in an unexpected twist that parallels what the country itself is facing – a buried secret from their past emerges to cast a shadow on the future and pull them apart. More than any Studio Ghibli film, From Up on Poppy Hill embodies a specific time and place and captures the emotional landscape of its setting. The sense of yearning and new possibility is palpable (the upbeat mood is set perfectly by the period pop music), evoking both a wide-eyed hope for the future, and an aching nostalgia for a past that can never be recovered.

Star-filled voice cast includes Gillian Anderson, Sarah Bolger, Beau Bridges, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bruce Dern, Jeff Dunham, Isabelle Fuhrman, Christina Hendricks, Ron Howard, Chris Noth, Emily Osment, Aubrey Plaza, Charlie Saxton, Alex Wolff and Anton Yelchin. Multiple Academy Award® winner Gary Rydstrom directed the English language version from a script adaptation by Karey Kirkpatrick. Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy executive produced.

ABOUT STUDIO GHIBLI

Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by animation directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and is one of the most successful and well-respected animation studios in the world. Cultivating a creative force of talented directors, animators, and storytellers under the revered brilliance of Miyazaki and Takahata, Studio Ghibli’s films have been praised for their originality, dazzling animation, and epic storytelling. The films have become a beloved part of Japanese popular culture, and have garnered worldwide acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature of 2002 and in 2005 Miyazaki was named one of “the most influential people” by TIME Magazine.

ABOUT GKIDS

GKIDS is a distributor of award-winning filmed entertainment specializing in animation for both adult and family audiences. The company has scored three Best Animated Feature Oscar® nominations in the past three years, with The Secret of Kells in 2010 and both A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita in 2012 – marking the first time an independent distributor has had two simultaneous nominations in the category. GKIDS also handles North American theatrical distribution for Oscar® winner Hayao Miyazaki’s famed Studio Ghibli library of films, one of the world’s most coveted animation collections with titles Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and others. GKIDS is longtime producer of the New York International Children’s Film Festival, an Oscar®-qualifying event and North America’s largest festival of film for children and teens.