Film to open in select US theaters this year; wide release slated for early 2016

Entertainment news source Variety reported on Friday that Funimation Entertainment has acquired the U.S. rights to Mamoru Hosoda's upcoming film The Boy and the Beast . The film will open in select theaters later this year and nationwide in early 2016.

Theatrical screenings have already been set for France, and the major French movie studio Gaumont will handle international sales outside Asia. Funimation is working with Gaumont International to release the film.

Funimation executive vice president and chief operating officer Mike DuBoise stated, "We're confident that critics and moviegoers will quickly agree that this is an Oscar-worthy film."

The story of the film is set in the human realm (Tokyo's Shibuya ward) and the bakemono realm ("Jūtengai"). In these two worlds which must not intersect, there lives a lonely boy and a lonely bakemono. One day, the boy gets lost in the bakemono world, becomes the disciple of the bakemono Kumatetsu, and is renamed Kyūta.

Hosoda (Summer Wars, Wolf Children) created and scripted the movie. It will be Hosoda's first film since 2012, when his relatively new animation movie company Studio Chizu released Wolf Children as its first project.

The film will open on July 11 in Japan. Renji Asai (Sentō Jōsai Masurawo) launched the manga in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace on April 25.

Thanks to Rukiia for the news tip.