Eleven Arts announced during its panel at Crunchyroll Expo on Saturday that it will screen Hiroyasu Ishida and Studio Colorido's Penguin Highway anime film in theaters in the United States in winter 2019.

Eleven Arts screened the film at Crunchyroll Expo on Sunday. The screening is the film's United States premiere. Crunchyroll Expo's website previously briefly listed Eleven Arts as the film's distributor last month.

The film opened in Japan on August 17. The film ranked #10 in its opening weekend. As of August 26, the film has earned a cumulative total of 307,322,300 yen (about US$2.76 million).

The story of the original novel by Tomihiko Morimi centers on fourth grader Aoyama (Kana Kita) and a mysterious older woman (Yuu Aoi), who is a dental assistant and also Aoyama's first crush. When a group of penguins appears in his quiet suburban neighborhood, Aoyama works to uncover the reason for their appearance.

Hiroyasu Ishida, who directed Colorido's "Hinata no Aoshigure" and "Fumiko's Confession" shorts, directed the film as his first feature-length directorial work. Typhoon Noruda director Yōjiro Arai designed the characters for the film. Makoto Ueda, who wrote and supervised the scripts for anime adaptations of Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy and Night is Short, Walk On Girl novels, returned to pen the script for this film. Umitarō Abe composed the music.

The film won the "Axis: The Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation" award for Best Animated Feature at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival in July.

Yen Press licensed Morimi's original novel.

Madhouse previously adapted Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy ( Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei ) novel into a 2010 television anime under director Masaaki Yuasa. Yuasa returned to adapt Morimi's Night is Short, Walk On Girl ( Yoru wa Mijikashi Aruke yo Otome ) novel at his Science SARU studio, and the film premiered in April 2017 in Japan. P.A. Works adapted both of Morimi's The Eccentric Family ( Uchōten Kazoku ) novels into two television anime seasons in 2013 and 2017.

Source: Eleven Arts' Crunchyroll Expo panel (Deb Aoki)