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2nd Gundam Hathaway Film Unveils New Visual, Confirms 2025 Opening in Japan
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Bandai Namco Filmworks also confirmed that the film will debut theatrically in Japan this year, with North American screenings to follow. The previous teaser trailer for the film previously said in Japanese that the film will open "this winter," but said in English that the film will open "next winter," but the panel has clarified that the film will open "this winter" in North America as well.
Finally, the panel showed a new message from Kenshō Ono, who voices Hathaway Noa in the films.
The main cast and most of the staff are returning from the first film, but Yuichi Kuboki is joining Takako Suzuki as a color key artist. Yoshinori Sayama (Macross Plus, Cowboy Bebop, Mobile Suit Gundam UC) is credited for display designs after contributing to the first film. Yoshihisa Ōyama is the new film's compositing director of photography with Manabu Kamitōno directing the visual effects.
Director Shukou Murase had teased during the first film's 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc release event in December 2021 that the second film may not open before 2024, the year of the next Summer Olympic Games, at least. The film's producer Naohiro Ogata revealed that the next stage of the film series is Australia, but it has been difficult to cover the area because of COVID-19, so the director had been using a flight simulator to fly around the sky there.
The film project will be a trilogy, and the second part had a working title of Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senkō no Hathaway: San of Bright. The film's producer Ogata elaborated that the Japanese katakana characters "San" (サン) can be read as "sun" or "son." (The film's main character Hathaway Noa is the son of the character Bright Noa.) Ogata stated the second part would have some differences from Yoshiyuki Tomino's original novel series.
The first film opened in Japan on June 11, 2021, after previously being delayed three times. The movie was originally slated to open in Japan in July 2020, but was delayed due to COVID-19. The film was delayed in April from May 7 to May 21, and was then delayed again due to the extended state of emergency declared in Japan.
The first Hathaway film sold 259,074 tickets for 523,943,800 yen (about US$4.77 million) in its first three days at the box office. It ranked at #3 (in terms of tickets sold) in its opening weekend. It eventually became the first Gundam film since 1988's Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack to top the 1 billion yen mark. The film has earned a cumulative total of 2,209,628,200 yen (about US$19.57 million) in the Japanese box office as of October 10, 2021. (The Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- anime film has since surpassed its total.)
Netflix U.S. began exclusively streaming the first film on July 1, 2021.
Sources: Bandai Namco Filmworks' SDCC panel, Email correspondence
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. (Sunrise) is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.
