Japan gets everything late.

That being said, X-Men: Days of Future Past comes out tomorrow. But Transformers: Age of Extinction comes out on 8th August. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes comes out on 26th September, and How to Train Your Dragon 2 currently has no date set.

US comedies do not do well in Japan. Sometimes they don't even get released, which I assume will be the case with Tammy.

Corpse any prediction on how X-Men will do in Japan? I know it is coming out too soon from its release date but the WOM is good and it is doing good numbers everywhere. Could that be a factor?

I hope it makes at least 25m

Spirited Away's record is officially safe. The DVD and Blu-Ray are coming in July.
I just can't think of a dumbest decision, Disney really lost its mind.
Fuck you, Disney. F.U.C.K.

The Yen's record?

Yes.

Yeah, the DVD is being released in July afterall. I think they were late in confirming the date because now some might skip it in theaters and wait for the DVD (especially the repeat viewers). I suppose we'll see if this is true if there's a noticeable change in its weekly increases/decreases.

I mean, July is the perfect time to release a DVD, but the July 19-20 weekend is when it's going to suffer a massive drop. It still has 7 weeks until that point, though, which is enough time to overtake Titanic and become the #2 film of all-time.

Didn't help Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The X-Men franchise has been dropping with each new installment, with X3 being the last one (including the Wolverine films) to even gross more than ¥1 billion ($10 million). I think the new film will do better than the Wolverine films and First Class, but ¥1 billion ($10 million) will still be a challenge. I think it'll earn ¥1.1/1.2 billion ($11/12 million).

Top Grossing [Imported] Superhero Films

01. Spider-Man - ¥7.50 billion ($59 million)
02. Spider-Man 3 - ¥7.12 billion ($67 million)
03. Spider-Man 2 - ¥6.70 billion ($61 million)
04. The Incredibles - ¥5.26 billion ($52 million)
05. The Avengers - ¥3.61 billion ($46 million)
06. The Amazing Spider-Man - ¥3.16 billion ($39 million)
07. Hancock - ¥3.10 billion ($30 million)
08. Batman - ¥3.00 billion ($20 million)
09. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - ¥2.79 billion ($27.5 million) [5 Weeks in Release]
10. Iron Man 3 - ¥2.57 billion ($26.4 million)
11. Superman II - ¥2.55 billion ($12 million)
12. The Dark Knight Rises - ¥1.97 million ($24 million)
13. X-Men - ¥1.85 billion ($18 million)
14. X2: X-Men United - ¥1.80 billion ($16 million)
15. The Dark Knight - ¥1.60 billion ($16 million)
16. X-Men: The Last Stand - ¥1.53 billion ($14 million)
17. Superman Returns - ¥1.50 billion ($12 million)
18. Batman Begins - ¥1.40 billion ($14 million)
19. Iron Man 2 - ¥1.20 billion ($14 million)

Man of Steel - ¥970 million ($9.8 million)
Fantastic Four - ¥950 million ($10 million)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - ¥900 million ($9 million)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - ¥900 million ($10 million)
Hulk - ¥850 million ($8 million)
The Wolverine - ¥820 million ($8.4 million)
Iron Man - ¥800 million ($9 million)
X-Men: First Class - ¥750 million ($8 million)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier ¥690 million ($6.8 million) *Est*
Thor: The Dark World - ¥640 million ($6.2 million) *Est*
Thor - ¥550 million ($7 million)
Captain America: The First Avenger - ¥400 million ($5 million)
The Incredible Hulk - ¥250 million ($2 million)
Green Lantern - ¥200 million ($2 million)

Algren answered you. American comedies have no appeal.

It's unlikely that Neighbors, 22 Jump Street, or Tammy will be released in Japan. 21 Jump Street wasn't released, and neither were Identity Thief or The Heat.

Only Neighbors has a profile page on movies sites for this year, but a month or quarter for release isn't even listed yet and I doubt it finds a distributor.

A Million Ways to Die in the West is however being released in September solely due the success of Ted. Ted wasn't originally going to be released until it was picked up at the last moment in late 2012 due to its success everywhere.

Ted did big numbers last year and became the highest-grossing imported comedy since Home Alone 2. However, it's pretty much the exclusive example since it had a walking, talking teddy bear. A Million Ways to Die in the West isn't going to benefit from this whatsoever and I'll be surprised if it opens wide now after the poor reviews and likely poor box-office receipts elsewhere.

Do these films get released on home ideo in Japan or are they just not gettign released in any way there?

They're still being released on Blu-Ray/DVD.

Thanks for the replies, Algren and Corpse.

Are the Japanese big on home video? I sure hope Frozen isn't affected from the announcement.

This is like the bloody March/April release date stateside. Ruined the IM3 challenge.

When do Ghibli movies get announced for DVD?

DVD/Blu-Ray sales are generally very low in Japan. Prices are very high, so it's largely a music industry market with anime/movie sales being driven by otaku crowds mostly, who literally pay hundreds and thousands on single releases.

Most Studio Ghibli films are released in July, with their home video release being the following July, so a full year.

Rentals are popular though, and I believe that's what hurts any film still in release by that point the most.

This July sees the Blu-ray release of Spirited Away and The Wind Rises, as well as Frozen now. It's going to be a big month for Blu-ray/DVD sales.

Here is an incomplete list of the top-selling DVDs in Japan:

01. 2,401,992 - Spirited Away
02. 1,565,000 - Finding Nemo
03. 1,514,000 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
04. 1,384,000 - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
05. 1,370,000 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
06. 1,327,915 - Howl's Moving Castle
07. 1,265,000 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret
08. 1,247,560 - My Neighbor Totoro
09. 1,197,000 - The Matrix Reloaded
10. 1,158,000 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
11. 1,125,000 - Michael Jackson's This is It
12. 1,122,000 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
13. 1,032,000 - The Last Samurai
948,451 - Ponyo
943,000 - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
937,000 - The Matrix Revolution
932,999 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
794,696 - Castle in the Sky
743,000 - The Incredibles
732,000 - Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
667,504 - Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
640,000 - Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance
598,000 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
585,000 - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
580,000 - Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
574,434 - Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo
570,000 - Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
570,000 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
536,110 - Kiki's Delivery Service
510,000 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

-catlover provided many of these last year and noted that most were their yearly totals, not overall totals. I don't track weekly DVD sales, so it's hard to say how accurate they are.

The Studio Ghibli ones are accurate though. My Neighbor Totoro has been on the DVD sales chart for nearly 700-consecutive weeks, and most of the Ghibli DVDs appeared on the charts again last year after Miyazaki announced his retirement.

This is pretty amazing how each new installment gets lower and lower. I think Days of Future Past will struggle to get to $8m, especially since the rest of the world seems to love it. Japan are our contrarian nation.

Boo I really wanted to see how far it could get realizing its full potential.

700 weeks and it's only sold 1.2m? Wow.

That's really weird. The rental market must be huge. Funny then how Sony was the creator of DVD/BR.

You have to remember that TV is still very popular in Japan, too. The average person in Japan just watches movies on TV, and it's seen as a televised event of sorts when popular films air, and they can earn 20%+ audience shares.

And as you can see, selling over 1 million DVDs is a big deal. Only 13 DVDs/Blu-Rays are known to have done so, ever. Totoro usually sells 400-700 copies every week.

Not many DVDs sell more than 100,000 copies, and 500,000 copies+ is very rare and is reserved for Studio Ghibli, and franchises with many die-hard fans like Potter or Pirates.

Thanks for the charts Corpse. Just realized that the first Wolverine made $10m and First Class also did a fine $8m so I guess DOFP can see a slight increase for $10m total.

Weekend Forecast [05/31-06/01]

01 (01) ¥616 million ($6.1 million), -12%, ¥21.10 billion ($206.9 million), Frozen (Disney) Week 12
02 (--) ¥220 million ($2.1 million), 0, ¥290 million ($2.9 million), X-Men: Days of Future Past (Fox) NEW
03 (--) ¥205 million ($2.0 million), 0, All-Around Appraiser Q: Mona Lisa's Eye (Toho) NEW
04 (--) ¥135 million ($1.3 million), 0, ¥170 million ($1.6 million), Monsterz (Warner Bros.) NEW
05 (02) ¥129 million ($1.3 million), -27%, ¥480 million ($4.7 million), A Bolt from the Blue (Toho) Week 2
06 (03) ¥103 million ($1.0 million), -30%, ¥4.07 billion ($40.0 million), Thermae Romae II (Toho) Week 6
07 (04) ¥62 million ($610,000), -39%, ¥2.97 billion ($29.1 million), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Sony) Week 6
08 (05) ¥55 million ($540,000), -35%, ¥3.92 billion ($38.4 million), Detective Conan: The Sniper from Another Dimension (Toho) Week 7
09 (06) ¥51 million ($500,000), -37%, ¥510 million ($5.0 million), Ushijima the Loan Shark 2 (Toho) Week 3
10 (08) ¥36 million ($350,000), -35%, ¥1.67 billion ($16.3 million), Crayon Shin-chan: Serious Battle! Robot Dad Strikes (Toei) Week 7

>Frozen will effortlessly claim a 12th-consecutive week atop the box-office and very, very likely achieve the biggest 12th weekend ever in the process, too.

It also surpassed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on Thursday to become the #3 film of all-time in Japan. After 80 days in release, it has earned ¥20,377,433,900($199.8 million) with 16,013,713 admissions. Sometime during next week (probably next Wednesday), it will overtake Titanic (16.83 million) in admissions to become the most-attended imported film of all-time.

>X-Men: Days of Future's Past should top the opening weekends of two Wolverine films and First Class, but will still fall well short of the debuts of the original three films. It opened on Friday, and looking at admissions at Toho yesterday, it earned around ¥70/80 million ($700/800,000) before heading into the weekend.

>All-Around Appraiser Q: Mona Lisa's Eye has weak pre-sales and looks to debut lower than expected. However, it will be attracting a wide, older female audience that may not be keen on buying advance tickets. It may still give X-Men a run at the #2 spot over the weekend.

>Thermae Romae II will exceed the ¥4 billion (~$40 million) this weekend, making it just the 2nd live-action film (imported or domestic) along side The Eternal Zero from earlier this year to reach the mark in the past 15 months.

Also of note this weekend is that Sunday is the 1st of the Month (it's been 3 months since the 1st landed on a weekend), so expect strong admission showings with the 40% discount, but lower than avg. ticket prices.

Not counting the re-release though which you said did about 0.3m admissions...

it appears bcos of discount day BO today is significantly higher than last week and so frozen is going to increase again !!!!. As of 630PM across 4 chains where ticket sales can be tracked its already close to 165K. I am told nationwide admissions is around 2.8x this number and so its looking at 500K+ admission day for sure.


Now 6:37pm (local)
*1　164715　アナと雪の女王(FROZEN)
　*2　*45833　Ｘ－ＭＥＮ：フューチャー＆パスト
　*3　*34324　ＭＯＮＳＴＥＲＺ モンスターズ

It might be a discount day but DAYYUUUUUMMMMMM!!

This movie is a monster. If it keeps doing such weekends then no way in hell will Disney release it on DVD in July.

Yeah, though Corpse said that it is not the practice in Japan to combine the grosses/admissions of re-relases and original runs.

Yes, it looks to be up over last weekend by nearly 30% in admissions. Since Sunday was so strong though, the increase in gross will be closer to 15/20%. But it looks like it earned around ¥800 million ($8 million) once again.

Its 12th weekend here is actually going to be bigger than its 12th weekend in the US, and it may remain ahead of its weekend/weekly grosses in the US from here on out, too.

I'm working on this weekend's estimates now.