According to THR, Avatar currently stands at $92m in Japan after 6 weeks. So it remained mostly flat, if not increased a bit from week 5. Comparing it to At World's End ($102m), ROTK ($100m) Rookies ($94.5m), it's about $15/16m ahead of them. So comparisons with them are no longer useful.

So it's time to move up into the next tier of films. Only Spirited Away, Titanic, Howl's Moving Castle made more than these below. Princess Mononoke would fit in the tier below ($165.5m total), but I can't find weekly data for it.

After 6 weeks:

Ponyo - $107m ($5.4m weekend), finish - $172m
Bayside Shakedown 2 - $102m ($5m weekend), finish - $164.5m
Harry Potter 1 - $112m ($7.4m weekend), finish - $153m
Harry Potter 2 - Unknown week 6 total, but week 7 total was $114m ($6.2m weekend), finish - $142m
Avatar - $92m est (??? weekend)
Harry Potter 3 - $86m ($4.1m weekend), finished with $121m.



In USD, $92m makes it the 17th biggest film of all time. $120m is needed for Avatar to crack the top 10 All-Time USD, and right now that's looking very, very good. $122m for the Top 9, which is also looking very good. But that might be where it stops since it would need to reach $143m to crack the Top 8.

In Yen, Y8.3b makes it the 38th biggest film of all time. Y13.8b is needed to make the top 10, which doesn't seem likely as that would equal about $154m in USD. Not impossible however, Avatar still has a lot in the tank.

another Market where Avatar has done much better than expected.

Considering how the market there has turned against Hollywood films, it is a great gross.

Yep, it's having an amazing run. 3D tickets are Y2300 or about $26, and Imax can only be higher, likely around $33, and Namba Park has some tickets at Y4600 or over $50, but regardless, it's going to put Toho to the test this summer with Bayside Shakedown 3 to keep a local film at the top of the box office for a 3rd consecutive year.

So, $125 million is looking good, I suppose and $135+ million is actually possible, right?

I'd like to see the weekday/weekend breakdown, but yeah, $125m is pretty much locked I'd say.

90% of the international markets are putting the US to shame, Canada's performance is beyond amazing.

I'm really glad Avatar is having legs closer to a local film rather than a Hollywood film (wasn't looking at more than 80/85m that way). Along with One Piece, Up, and Nodame Cantabile, Avatar is really giving 2010 a huge start, nearly $300m will be grossed among them. About $240m or so right now.

http://www.screendaily.com/news/distrib ... 48.article

Avatar will breach the $100m barrier in Japan next weekend after raising the tally there by $6.9m from 604 to $92.1m after six weekends.

20% increase. Was it a some kind of holiday last week?

Avatar will breach the $100m barrier in Japan next weekend after raising the tally there by $6.9m from 604 to $92.1m after six weekends. Others may follow: latest figures put South Korea on $88.5m, Australia on $84.1m, and Spain on $82.7m. Brazil has generated $43.3m, Mexico $37.9m, and Taiwan $23.6m.

Nope, no holidays that I know of, though we'll have to see how the rest of the top 10 performed to see if Avatar was an exception. In Japan, frontloaded is only used for special cases (even a franchise like Pokemon which sees a new film almost annually, currently on film 11, wouldn't see a multiplier of 3 in the US still produces multipliers over 7 in Japan) , and instead of gradually dropping every week, most films tend to remain near an even level for several weeks, and sometimes increasing in some weeks. Multipliers near or over 10 aren't uncommon, they happen fairly often for local films. Hollywood films however act the same as they do in the states these days for the most part (open big, and gradually fall. Most opening day/week/weekend record belong to Hollywood films). Legs tend to be better overall, but multipliers rarely come near 10, the average is closer to 6. Terminator Salvation's multiplier of 3 last summer was considered absolutely awful for instance, but would be good in the states. Ice Age 3 also had a terrible multiplier not much higher, it didn't even clear $1.5m in total, meaning it likely didn't even get 100,000 admissions.

Avatar is simply acting more like a local film rather than a Hollywood film.

The top selling mangas of all-time has been updated with 2009 sales:

rank/title/volumes/copies sold

1. One Piece (56 volumes) - 179,000,000 (14,700,000 in 2009)
2. Dragon Ball (42 volumes) - 160,000,000
3. Kochikame (163 volumes) - 150,000,000
4. Slam Dunk (31 volumes) - 120,000,000
5. Naruto (46 volumes) - 97,000,000 (6,800,000 in 2009)
6. JoJo's Bizarre Adventures (99 volumes) - 70-80,000,000
7. Bleach (42 volumes) - 62,500,000 (6,500,000 in 2009)
8. Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star (27 volumes) - 55,000,000
9. Kinnikuman/Mucleman (36 volumes) - 53,000,000
10. Captain Tsubasa (55 voumes) - 52,000,000

It's a shame 4Kids got One Piece in the States. They completely ruined any chance of the anime catching on with all the changes. Suckers substituted for cigarettes? Not allowed to refer to someone as God? I can't even imagine what words they used to substitute for curse words. Yuck.

Sport themed Manga are quite popular. The only one that seems interesting to me is Prince of Tennis though. A Slam Dunk live-action film would likely do extremely well; I read it was actually voted most wanted live-action film adaptation a year or so ago in some poll, too. Odd it hasn't been made after all this time.

Total manga sales in Japan for 2009: 1.156 trillion yen (or about $12.85 billion USD). Over 5x the film industry, heh.

Sony has said the DVD will not be made available for rental however. This Is It finished with $58m at the Box Office (25% of it's overseas gross), 5th for 2009.

Jan. 30-31, 2009 Admission Rankings:

1 1 Avatar FOX 6
2 2 Oceans GAGA 2
3 NEW About Her Brother Shochiku 1
4 NEW Golden Slumber Toho 1
5 NEW Shinkenger Vs Goonger Toei 1
6 NEW The Lovely Bones Paramount 1
7 NEW Paranormal Activity Presidio 1
8 4 Sayonara Itsuka Asmik Ace 2
9 5 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Showgate 2
10 6 Nodame Cantabile The Movie I Toho 7

Films opening this week:

5th
Invictus (2009)
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

6th
Satsuma ogojo (2010)
Los abrazos rotos (2009)
Shokudo katasumuri (2009)
Last Chance Harvey (2008)
Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoshitsu (2010)
Raiâ gêmu: Za fainaru sutêji (2010)
Toy Story (1995) (3-D version) (re-release)
Toy Story 2 (1999) (3-D version) (re-release)
Kôchi: 40-sai no figyua sukêtâ (2010)


And the 2000's stats:



2009 was a very good year. Best year for Japanese films, and second best of the decade overall.

Japan likes Eastwood, right?

Yeah, but Gran Torino only grossed 1.1b yen (about $13/14m or so). Which isn't exactly bad, but I don't see Invictus matching it. Unless Rugby has it's fans there.

Avatar is safe again this coming weekend at No.1 as long as the initial rush to see Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoshitsu doesn't end up being too big, and I'm not sure how the Toy Story's will effect the 3D screens for Avatar.

I was thinking Toy Stories will affect the number of shows though not the overall business.

BTW how many screens have been converted right now to 3-D and statistics for Japan?

And if it a hassle we can take your word for it Corpse

I don't know an exact number, but Avatar opened on 283 3D screens, which is probably near the max right now.

3D isn't as big in Japan as it's becoming in most other markets...yet. Ice Age 3 bombed horribly, though Up did increase over Wall-E (44m vs 56m est finish). I'm not sure if 3D was the biggest factor there though. When Avatar first opened, 3D accounted for 75% of the opening week, but that gradually dropped week after week, and the last percentage I saw was about 60%. Avatar's gross probably looks something like 3D - $55m vs 2D - $37m or so, which is probably on the lower end compared to what it's made in 3D in most other markets.

But with 3D broadcasts beginning this summer, Avatar's success, Alice in Wonderland (which is receiving a great deal of buzz), it's going to catch on in some form soon, but I wouldn't expect a big increase in 3D screens. Like normal screens, it'll take time adding them and will likely need local productions to fuel them the most.

Japan's film industry isn't all that big. DVD sales keep decling each year (though it actually increased slightly in 2009 thanks to Ponyo), and the box office, despite being the No.1 Overseas market in gross, is very small compared to other medias. By comparison,

Japan's Box Office 2009 - $2.28b
Japan's Music Industry 2008 - $2.7b
Japan's DVD/Blu Ray Sales 2009 - $3b
Japan's Video Game Industry 2008 - $6.6b
Japan's Manga Revenue 2009 - $12.9b

Jan. 30-31, 2010

1. Avatar Fox Int'l $6,846,505 6 678 $10,098 19 $91,978,188
2. Oceans GAGA $3,477,850 2 303 $11,478 -7 $10,814,199
3. Younger Brother Shochiku $2,616,454 1 303 $8,635 0 $2,616,454
4. Golden Slumber Toho $2,171,688 1 307 $7,074 0 $2,171,688
5. Samurai Sentai Shinkenger vs. Go-onger Ginmaku Bang! TOEI $1,659,338 1 140 $11,852 0 $1,659,338
6. Lovely Bones, The Paramount Int'l $1,515,834 1 306 $4,954 0 $1,968,995
7. Paranormal Activity Presidio Corporation $1,137,945 1 160 $7,112 0 $1,137,945
8. Sayonara itsuka Asmik Ace $1,100,551 2 180 $6,114 -25 $4,933,291
9. Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Showgate $909,608 2 233 $3,904 -38 $3,887,771
10. Surrogates Walt Disney Int'l $798,818 2 319 $2,504 -47 $4,022,477

Great for Avatar of course, but also very impressive for Oceans. It's 2nd weekend is higher than Earth's 1st. 30m+ is locked up for it being about 2m ahead of it right now.

And all the openers did quite well (Lovely Bones is debatable though).

So Where the Wild Things Are disappeared pretty fast...

It's probably still doing decent (tons of films below the top 10 are likely around 500-750k last weekend). This time of year though following the holidays, tons of new films get released. A total of 11 films debuted in the top 10 over the past two weeks. This weekend will see at least three, but probably four or five more again (10 total are being released this weekend).

Corpse I liked that you have Bleach but the boob thing is seriously irritating. I just keep on looking on that instead of your posts everywhere

I bet that those are from Rangiku eh

[sigh] really big fan

One of them was Rangiku, yes. Don't get too attached to any avis or sigs I use though, I probably change them three times a week or more. ^__^

Aah who was the other one? With Hitsugaya it was her for sure but with child Byakuya who was the other one ?