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Godzilla Minus One Live-Action Film, Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo Anime Film Producers Win Fujimoto Award

Japan's Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyōkai (Film Theater Culture Association) announced the winners of its 43rd annual Fujimoto Awards on Monday. Godzilla Minus One live-action film producers Hisashi Usui, the late Shuji Abe, Kenji Yamada, Kazuaki Kishida, Gō Abe, and Keiichirō Moriya received the general award.

Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo producer Keisuke Naitō is awarded this year's rookie award.

The Fujimoto Awards, named after Shachō and Wakadaishō series producer Sanezumi Fujimoto, recognize the achievements of film producers who have worked on popular and entertaining films.

Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki's new film in TOHO's Godzilla franchise, opened in Japan on November 3, 2023 ("Godzilla Day"), which was the anniversary of the first Godzilla film's November 3, 1954 release. The new film screened at The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) as the closing film of last year's event on November 1.

The film sold 648,600 tickets for 1,041,193,460 yen (about US$6.93 million) in its first three days in the Japanese box office. The film sold 14.7% more tickets and earned 22.8% more in its first three days than the last live-action Japanese Godzilla film, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi's Shin Godzilla, did in its first three days in 2016.

The film earned an estimated US$55,009,463 in the United States and US$47,486,867 internationally, as of January 28. The film has now become the third highest-grossing foreign-language film of all time in the United States.

The Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo (Kitaro Birth: The Mystery of Gegege) anime film opened in Japan last November 17 and sold 111,500 tickets and earned 160,106,620 yen (about US$1.07 million) in its first three days. The film has earned a cumulative total of 2,472,410,610 yen (about US$16.79 million) as of January 28.

The film is part of four "big projects" commemorating the 100-year anniversary of Shigeru Mizuki's birth. Mizuki died in 2015 at 93 years old. Another project is a new Akuma Kun anime that premiered on Netflix on November 9 last year.

Toshiyuki Matsui, the producer of The First Slam Dunk anime film, received the general award, and producers Katsuhiro Takei and Mikito Bizenjima won the rookie award for the Blue Giant anime film in last year's Fujimoto Awards. Manga artist Eiichiro Oda, producers Kei Kajimoto and Hiroaki Shibata, and editor Ken Takano all won the special award for the One Piece Film Red anime.

Sources: Eiga Engeki Bunka Kyōkai website, Eiga Natalie