Lee Pace, Alison Brie and Riz Ahmed are headlining the English voice cast of Weathering With You, GKIDS’ upcoming movie from director Makoto Shinkai and producer Genki Kawamura, creators of the acclaimed animated film Your Name, the distributor announced Monday.
GKIDS is set to release the pic nationwide on Jan. 17, following special nationwide fan preview screenings through Fathom Events on Jan. 15-16.
Weathering With You was the No. 1 locally made movie in Japan and was the country’s official selection for consideration in the best international feature film Oscar category.
According to GKIDS, the story centers on a high school freshman named Hodaka who “runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.”
Brandon Engman and Ashley Boettcher are voicing the male and female leads.
Pace is best known for his work in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy; Brie is one of the stars of Netflix’s GLOW; and Ahmed appeared in Venom and HBO’s The Night Of.
