The Last: Naruto the Movie opened last weekend via 266 screens and emerged no. 1 at the box office. It sold 396,280 tickets and earned 515,331,800 yen (about US$4.27 million). It is 55% higher than the weekend record of the 9th film Road to Ninja released in July 2012, also the highest opening in the anime franchise. The movie is expected to eventually top 2 billion yen (about US$16 million), a record for the franchise.

The Last -Naruto the Movie- is part of the larger “Naruto Shin Jidai Kaimaku Project” (Naruto’s New Era Opening Project) marking the 15th anniversary of the original manga. New announcements were made regarding a new Naruto Film and new Naruto Epilogues.

The movie screening ended with an announcement that a new Naruto project that will “open” in August 2015. The new film after The Last -Naruto the Movie- will tell the story of [Highlight white text to read spoilers] Bolt (Boruto), Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyūga’s son who appeared in the 700th and final chapter of the manga. Kishimoto added, “I conceived a story in which Bolt and [Sasuke’s daughter] Sarada appears.” He also conceived of Bolt’s special fighting move.

Manga creator Masashi Kishimoto will be serving as chief production supervisor for next year’s movie.

In addition, by April 2015, the latest batch of Naruto manga will be published to tell the stories of manga’s prominent characters after the events of the main Naruto story. Shueisha announced last December 6 the full line up of novels to be released in this order: (‘hiden’ means ‘secret legend’)

• Kakashi Hiden
• Shikamaru Hiden
• Akatsuki Hiden
• Gaara Hiden
• Sakura Hiden
• Konohagakure Hiden

Kishimoto had said in an interview last month that he will still have other work left to do in the Naruto franchise until next summer, so he will not begin preparing his next non-Naruto title in earnest until after that.

(via Movie Walker, ANN1, ANN2)