Corpse, are you back to 100 % or do you still have some long term side effects?

99%. There are a few times when I do normal things where I feel unusually exhausted afterward (say... vacuuming or going up some stairs), or experience random spells that might last a couple hours of being a little wheezy (nothing to the point of being uncomfortable at least), but otherwise all good.

Thanks for asking!

Close battle for #1 this weekend:

¥654,941,180 ($4.52 million) / 469,606 - Tokyo Revengers 2: Bloody Halloween Part 2 - Decisive Battle (Warner Bros.)
¥648,000,000 ($4.47 million) / 448,000 - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney)

Tokyo Revengers 2 Part 2 opened 12% higher than Part 1 from back in April. This is very notable because Part 2 films released a couple months after Part 1 have a mostly remain stable or miss track record; they don't often increase. This is an encouraging sign not just for the film to either match/exceed the gross of Part 1, but also for the health of the franchise itself.

And Indiana Jones opens 9% lower than The Little Mermaid and 0.003% (really lol) higher than Avatar 2. So, comparable opening to Disney's top openers in recent years. Like both of them, however, this opening is unlikely to get it to the ¥5 billion blockbuster mark, so it'll be aiming for ¥3.5/4 billion. This was very likely Disney's last chance at a blockbuster this year and perhaps even their last chance until 2025, so pretty disappointing to say the least for the struggling studio. Going possibly five consecutive years with no blockbusters is extremely concerning.

Corpse, I think you have forgotten the zero in Tokyo Revengers - 6億549万4180円 (should be ¥605,494,180)

Apparently they got a idol singer (kind of a boy brandish thing) to voice Wade in the Japanese dub of Elemental. Don't know if that will be effective marketing there

He's known as Tama-chan

Oh, whoops.

Still a close race for #1 with split winners (revenue / admissions)! lol.

Is there some analysis of Indy's opening? To me that looks great. And as I understand the Japan market they do tend to support longlasting franchises (with it being an ageing society) due to nostalgia, and Indy is 80s through-and-through which was a nice time for Japanese prosperity. How's it likely to do for the remainder of its run? I see it out-opened Tokyo Revengers 2, is that an impressive feat? Is that a popular franchise in Japan?

It's pretty rough. Not disastrous... but definitely leaves much to be desired.

The opening is 54% lower in JPY (-67% in USD cause exchange rate is at a 30 year low) than Crystal Skull, although CS's opening included a ton of previews (41% of its entire weekend) since it was allowed to add previews to opening weekends back then, so... not a fair comparison. Remove the previews and it's more like a 22% drop in JPY (-43% in USD).

I'm expecting Dial of Destiny to finish around ¥3.5/4 billion ($24-28m) with its opening. If it can actually get to ¥4 billion, that'd be a 30% drop (in JPY... USD will be over 50%) from CS which I'd considered fairly good. It'll end up as the second lowest film in the franchise though.

¥7.40 billion ($49.4m) - Last Crusade
¥5.71 billion ($63.4m) - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
~¥5.3 billion* ($21.8m) - Temple of Doom
¥3.5-4.0 billion ($24-28m) - Dial of Destiny *Projection*
~¥2.3 billion* ($10.2m) - Raiders of the Lost Ark

*Based on their distributor income of ¥1.38 billion (Raiders) and ¥3.2 billion (Temple); USD figure based on avg. exchange rate of first 3 months in release.

The Last Crusade is still in the Top 100, by the way, at #93.

Thanks for the analysis. I was totally wrong on it, lol.

Mario's been holding very well these past few weeks. ¥14 billion seems back on the table.

Next year's Doraemon film will have a musical theme, this is obviously inspired by recent successful musical anime films like Blue Giant, One Piece Red, or even dated back to Belle.

Meanwhile, only one week left until How do you live? release, since there's no promotional material, news reporter begins to write about "what-if" Hayao Miyazaki is gone.

That's something to consider here as well, this film very likely being the last Studio Ghibli movie ever released and not just from Miyazaki. That could be an extra incentive for the Japanese to watch the likely final film ever released by their most famous studio and arguably director in theaters. They've decided to not market the film... but this could be a strong marketing device if they utilize it after it opens.

I don't think a lot of people outside Japan (or with an interest in animation) realize or understand that Studio Ghibli is basically done with filmmaking, and have been for almost a decade now. I see people saying "let them do The Legend of Zelda!" and stuff, and it's like... they closed shop back in 2014 and most of their people moved on and founded a new studio.

Many animators, directors (like Yonebayashi), and executive producer (Nishimura) left Studio Ghibli when it was announced they were closing their film production department in 2014, and later founded Studio Ponoc. Studio Ponoc has a new film (The Imaginary) expected in Winter 2023 (presumably December), although I wonder if it'll get delayed again.

Back to Ghibli though... Miyazaki is 82, so he'd be over 90 if he decides to make another film. Not impossible, but unlikely. His son is the only director left with the studio to my knowledge, but his last film was a TV release and there's no reason to believe the studio can survive with him (he only had one successful film...). President/Producer and fellow co-founder Suzuki is also 74, and while not quite of "advanced age", I wouldn't expect him to continue after Miyazaki is done/passes.

Just 6 days to go! Definitely among the most interesting openings to ever watch next week. Going to be interesting to see how theaters book it. I mean, Miyazaki + Ghibli is going to give it plenty of seating/showings of course, especially at Toho, but theaters also know nothing about it aside from the recently revealed runtime. Do you give it the standard blockbuster booking, or do you go all out with it? It hasn't even been given an Eiren rating yet. I assume it's not an R15+ film, but would be kinda funny if it was and moviegoers go in without knowing.

As for this weekend... gonna be pretty poor. Nothing significant is opening, so Indiana Jones and Tokyo Revengers 2 (Part 2) will repeat at #1/2 but probably experience meh holds. Hopefully the older holdovers can manage some strong holds. (Friday was overall kinda meh though, so we'll see...)

Yesterday Nausicaa aired on Japan's TV channel and immediately grab no.1 worldwide trend on twitter, does this mean that Miyazaki's brand is still strong, even if younger generation only see him as a meme of someone that represent technophobe?

Also, Is airing Miyazaki's older work count as marketing plan for his new work?

Miyazaki films always get good ratings (granted in good part because they aren't even available for streaming in Japan IIRC), they are still very much popular

By the way, the manga adaptation of the original How Do You Live? novel came back in the Oricon rankings last week (Oricon doesn't categorize it as a manga so it's in a minor ranking, but whatever).

13./00. How Do You Live? {2017.08.24} - 877 / 1,966,381

Only 877 units, so not much, but I figured this might still interest you all.
It sold close to 2 million almost solely thanks to the announcement that Miyazaki's next movie would be titled after it. See this evolution of its sales and how it took off around October 2017, a few weeks after its initial release:



And yes, this technically makes it the fastest selling first volume of a manga ever.

Very cool, thanks, Rouk'!

As for the TV broadcasts of Miyazaki's films this week (and probably month), I suppose it's a means of marketing since there might be a "be sure to see Miyazaki's next film in theaters" ad running with the commercials, but no footage or any other info would accompany it. Maybe. There might not even be that since I'd assume it'd cost money to have something like this play.

And note that TV broadcast of past franchise and/or director films before a new film opens/for a bit after they open is normal. Like I'm pretty sure the Indiana Jones films are being broadcast right now. Select Detective Conan films get broadcast shortly before/after the new films open, and so on and so on. TV has certainly dipped in viewership, but it's still relatively popular vs most other markets in the world.

I was a little iffy with this no marketing strategy, and it remains to be seen what the impact on the box office will be, but whatever happens, I appreciate the effort.

I say this because a ridiculous amount of Deadpool 3 spoilers and reveals have been all over social media this week. I didn't want to know so-and-so is returning. I didn't want to know they are expected to be in the film too, etc. Even if some of it is just rumors that don't materialize, it doesn't matter since expectations are there now. There's probably little/no surprises to be had now. And once the trailers start, it's just going to make it even less surprising or interesting to check out. I'd probably just want to wait and buy the movie and save the money from going to the theaters because of how much they're already revealing and spoiling about it.