Bandai Namco Filmworks announced this past weekend at Sakura-con 2024 plans to release the mecha-animated film Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM in select North American theaters this Spring.
The release is in cooperation with Fathom Events and will see the film show across 800 big screens across North America on May 7th and May 8th. Tickets for the highly anticipated theatrical release will go on sale this week on Friday, April 5th. More information, including the participating theaters and showtimes, will also be revealed on this date. Early screenings of the film were shown in both L.A. and New York on March 31st with English subtitles.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM opened in theaters in Japan on January 26, 2024. It became the fastest film in Japan tot break the one million yen mark this year. It sold 630,000 tickets and earned 1.06 Billion Yen (about $7.2M) in the first three days, making it the highest three-day opening ever for a Gundam movie. It took another week for it to become the highest-grossing Gundam film ever, surpassing Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space with 2.68 billion yen (about $17.9M).
In celebration of the film's upcoming North American theatrical release, we now have an official six-minute English-dubbed preview, along with an official English-subtitled trailer.
C.E. (Cosmic Era). An era in which there are human beings called Coordinators, born with superior physical and mental abilities thanks to genetic modification, and humans called Naturals who are born naturally. With their respective existence at stake, the ideological clash between Coordinators and Naturals escalated into war using armed force.
Along the way, the Destiny Plan was proposed, which would forcibly assign a role to each individual and create a world free of competition. But amid the fighting, this Destiny Plan was rejected in order to protect humanity's aspirations and future freedom.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM is directed by Mitsuo Fukuda, who also wrote the script along with Chiaki Morosawa and Riu Goto. It stars Sōichirō Hoshi, Rie Tanaka, Akira Ishida, Nanako Mori, Kenichi Suzumura, and Maaya Sakamoto.
In somewhat related news, Netflix recently revealed the trailer for Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance. The upcoming CG-anime series, which has been created using Unreal Engine 5, will arrive on the streaming service this Fall. The six-episode series is set during the One Year War, which formed the backdrop of the original 1979 Mobile Suite Gundam, and focuses on the war's European front. It centers on Iria Sorari, a Principality of Zeon pilot under the "Red Wolves" division, who is tasked with defending the European front against the Earth Federation Forces' efforts to reclaim the area.