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NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 Whenever the calendar comes out, Amanda Mendoza VanCleave circles the dates.<\/p>\n Studio Ghibli Fest<\/a>, the long-running theatrical revivals of Ghibli movies, has taken on a special meaning for her, her 3-year-old daughter and her mother, Araceli. Every year, they go to see each Ghibli rerelease in theaters.<\/p>\n \u201cRight when she sees the opening Totoro logo, she screams \u2018Totoro!\u2019\u201d VanCleave, 34, says of her daughter. \u201cEveryone in the theater started laughing, and I was like, \u2018Oh, gosh, sorry.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Though the family discovered the Ghibli movies on HBO Max, the outings to their favorite theater in Austin, Texas, became a tradition. Earlier this month, when they went (again) to see Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s<\/a> 1988 anime classic, \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro,\u201d they wore matching Totoro jammies.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been our thing,\u201d says VanCleave. \u201cUs three girls together.\u201d<\/p>\n The passionate fandom Ghibli tends to inspire is well-documented. Yet the consistency of the Japanese animation studio\u2019s films in theaters \u2014 years, even decades after their release \u2014 is without parallel in movies. Every year, longtime Ghibli fans as well as new, little ones, flock to cinemas.<\/p>\n Sporadically dated from June through October, Ghibli Fest has been running for a decade. Movies like \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro,\u201d \u201cSpirited Away\u201d and \u201cPonyo\u201d have become not occasional rereleases but practically theatrical mainstays. Ghibli Fest is more like an ongoing movie marathon: cinema’s answer to Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour. <\/p>\n And, remarkably, it keeps growing. When GKids, the North American distributor for Ghibli, and Fathom Entertainment launched Ghibli Fest in 2017, its five titles accounted for $5 million in ticket sales. But the festival\u2019s biggest box-office years have been the last three \u2014 all after Ghibli titles became easy to stream on HBO Max in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be lying if I thought the program when we conceived it would be going as long as it has,\u201d says Dave Jesteadt, GKids president. \u201cIt does defy conventional wisdom. We keep waiting for the year that people tire of going to the films, but that\u2019s not what\u2019s happening. Every single year, we see records being set. The grosses are going up, not down.\u201d<\/p>\n Ghibli expands its footprint <\/p>\n The biggest year for Ghibli Fest was 2024, when 14 movies accounted for $16.4 million in sales. Last year, eight movies grossed $10.6 million. This year, both \u201cPonyo\u201d and \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d have already played for popular five-day stints.<\/p>\n Shannah Miller, vice president of marketing for Fathom, a company owned by the country’s top theater chains, has watched demand keep expanding. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started, I think our theatrical footprint was about 640 locations,\u201d Miller says. \u201cThis year, we\u2019re crossing over 1,100 locations. We started with two, maybe three playdates for a particular title, but due to fan demand, we have five-day runs for some titles.\u201d<\/p>\n When GKids first got Ghibli library in 2011, the Japanese studio emphasized how important theatrical was to them. First GKids hosted retrospectives, mostly in major markets and at arthouses. But Ghibli Fest moved the movies into multiplexes where a new generation of kids might stop before a cardboard cutout of Kiki (from \u201cKiki\u2019s Delivery Service\u201d) or No Face (from \u201cSpirited Away\u201d) and wonder if there might be animated movie worlds beyond Disney. <\/p>\n \u201cOne of the worst things that can happen to classics is that they\u2019re perceived as classics and kept in amber,\u201d says Jesteadt. \u201cWe wanted to move to a nationwide celebration that really treated these as equivalent to any new Hollywood film.\u201d<\/p>\n While North America moviegoing is up more than 10% this year<\/a>, theaters have learned over the last decade that they can\u2019t always depend on a steady stream of new Hollywood releases. There tend to be soft spots in the schedule, and early weekdays are always slow, anyhow.<\/p>\n