That's why I only use BOM if I have to. Avatar is just a new addition to the list of off numbers at BOM in the territory. Thankfully, THR and Variety are around. They both release their numbers every Wednesday which are probably going to match BOM's now. Or I should be saying BOM will now be matching them.

BOM has been a good bit higher than THR/Variety the past few weeks on Avatar, while every other film has also been a little higher, but nothing more than $1m. I'm almost certain it's due to the exhange rate, that BOM wasn't using the most recent until now. Japanese sites say it hit 15b yen this past weekend (about 300m for the entire week), which is about $161m, so it looks right.

I'll update where Avatar stands in Japan overall, and give some detail on the other films tomorrow when Variety updates. But I will say with the exchange rate now, which is also hurting $ grosses in the UK I believe, it doesn't look like Avatar will finish with much more than $170m. Or even less if it's hit hard by Alice on the 17th, then the DVD release the following week, and again by Clash on the 23rd. Japan doesn't have too many 3D screens, and of Avatar's 451 now, I'm sure 350+ are still 3D since it opened on 380 of them. And if FOX had any contracts to keep those screens, they're bound to be up now.

Also, the first 14 weeks of 2010 has only seen 2 films at No.1 Avatar for the first 9, and Doraemon for the past 5.

April 3-4, 2010

1. Doraemon: Nobita's South Sea Adventure Toho $1,737,623 5 366 $4,748 -29 $29,372,454
2. Avatar Fox Int'l $1,355,452 15 451 $3,005 -23 $159,694,502
3. Sherlock Holmes Warner Bros Int'l $1,259,496 4 447 $2,818 -28 $19,193,736
4. Pretty Cure All Stars DX2: Light of Hope - Protect the Rainbow Jewel! TOEI $1,061,413 3 160 $6,634 -32 $9,566,895
5. Liar Game: The Final Stage Toho $1,037,055 5 283 $3,665 -24 $22,255,399
6. Solanin Asmik Ace $988,355 1 108 $9,151 0 $988,355
7. G-Force Walt Disney Int'l $541,748 3 353 $1,535 -26 $5,775,633
8. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant Toho Towa $479,562 3 337 $1,423 -34 $5,697,624
9. Nine Kadokawa-Herald $457,612 3 314 $1,457 -39 $5,980,650
10. Hurt Locker, The Broadmedia $410,180 5 109 $3,763 -30 $6,576,138



Doraemon's 30th film just keeps going and going. 5 weeks on top, it's surpassed last year's film with ease, and is on par with the final total's of the higher grossing films in the series this decade. I'm unsure what the top grossing film is in the franchise, but $40m is looking good for this year's film which might make it the biggest in the series.

Avatar... The past few weeks I've noticed that BOM has been higher than both THR and Variety which normally have matching numbers. I wasn't quite sure, so when I checked the exchange rate with local currency, the converted total was very close to THR and Variety numbers. So I'm thinking BOM simply wasn't using the correct exchange rate until this weekend since their number now matches both THR and Variety. Avatar has grossed 15b yen (300m for the week), which also matches BOM, THR, and Variety's total. So it's pretty clear now that the exchange rate is hurting it. I think the UK is experiencing something similar with their exchange rate.

This alters it's final projection greatly. A month ago it was looking at $180m or so, but now $170m is going to be a struggle. 3/4 of it's screens are 3D, and all of them are going to be in danger when Alice in Wonderland opens on April 17th, and then again by Clash of the Titans on April 23rd. There is also the release of the DVD at the end of the month, with pre-sales having it topping the DVD charts already. Not sure why they are releasing the DVD so early, it should have been delayed until after the Summer.

Sherlock Holmes must be experiencing favorable WOM considering it's at the total where most Hollywood films that open around $4m finish already. $25m is a lock, and it could reach $30m which would be very impressive.

Pretty Cure DX2 has been holding steady since it opened. Looks like it'll finish in the mid-teens.

Liar Game: The Final Stage also keeps holding steady with it's strong weekday numbers. It is also looking to reach $30m like Sherlock Holmes.

Great opening for Solanin. Asmik Ace has handled their releases very well this year.

___________________________________________________________________________________

After 15 weeks...

Well, either way it's been a phenomenal run. #3 ever for me there, behind Titanic and Spirited Away.

I forgot to mention admissions hit 9.6m this past weekend, too.

1st Quarter Breakdown,
Note: Dec. begins the yearly Box-Office in Japan.


Top Grossing Films for the Yearly 2010 Box-Office:





Top 10 Opening Weekends of the Yearly Box-Office 2010:



Normally Dec. isn't that strong of a month with maybe one or two films doing big business, but this past December happened to be the exception and became the biggest Dec. of all time.

And here are the Top 20 Most Popular Films on Eiga.com leading into one of the biggest weekends of the year.

4/12/10

1. Shutter Island
2. District 9
3. Alice in Wonderland (April 17th)
4. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (May 2011)
5. Solanin
6. Nodame Cantabile Part II (April 17th)
7. My Darling is a Foreigner
8. The Hurt Locker
9. Kimi ni Todoke (From Me To You) (Sept. 25th)
10. Nine
11. Sherlock Holmes
12. Avatar
13. Yazima Beauty Salon The Movie (April 29th)
14. Nodame Cantabile Part I
15. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
16. Clash of the Titans (2010) (April 23rd)
17. Somebody Kissed Me
18. Crayon Shin-chan (April 17th)
19. Detective Conan: Lost Sky Ship (April 17th)
20. Up in the Air

Opened this Week
Future Release

Oh, D9 hasn't opened in Japan until now?!

District 9 had some good buzz going into the weekend, but I don't expect any big numbers coming from it. If I had to guess, I'd say a 2day around $1.5m.

Shutter Island opened to $3.5m est. according to THR. The number is more than likely the 3day gross (it opened on Friday), so the 2day will probably be about $2.8m. It should pass The Departed's $13/$14m total. It might also be No.1 for the weekend, but My Darling is a Foreigner also has a chance I think since Toho distributed it, meaning it got plenty of screens (258 or something was the number I saw yesterday).

Looks like I was wrong about District 9. I wasn't expecting it to receive the screens to do much above an avg. opening, but that doesn't seem to be the case as far as admissions are concerned.

Admissions Rankings 4/10-11:

1 - District 9
2 - Shutter Island
3 - My Darling is a Foreigner
4 2 Doraemon: Nobita's South Sea Adventure 6
5 4 Sherlock Holmes 5
6 1 Pretty Cure All Stars DX2: Light of Hope - Protect the Rainbow Jewel! 4
7 3 Liar Game: The Final Stage 6

4/10-11 Rankings



1 NEW Shutter Island Paramount 1
2 NEW District 9 WB/GAGA 1
3 NEW My Darling is a Foreigner Toho 1
4 1 Doraemon Nobita's South Sea Adventure Toho 6
5 3 Sherlock Holmes WB 5
6 2 Avatar Fox 16
7 4 Pretty Cure All Stars DX2: Light of Hope - Protect the Rainbow Jewel! TOEI 4
8 RE Nodame Cantabile Part I Toho 17
9 6 Solanin Asmik Ace 2
10 5 Liar Game: The Final Stage Toho 6


Shutter Island opened on 442 screens (259 sub;183 dub) selling 208,427 tickets over the 3day grossing 273,000,000 yen or about $2.9m for the 2day.

District 9 opened on 204 screens selling 125,335 tickets over the 2day grossing 165,000,000 yen or about $1.75m.

And My Darling is a Foreigner opened on 250 screens selling 90,071 tickets over the 2day grossing 123,000,000 yen or about $1.3m.

Nodame Cantabile Part I was also released for one-week only preparing for the release of Nodame Cantabile Part II which opens on April 17th. Part I grossed over 4b yen or $44m, but the re-release went well so it'll be adding a solid amount to it's overall total this week.

Next weekend is going to see 4 or 5 of the films in the current Top 10 fall out entirely. Those 4/5 being for sure: Liar Game: The Final Stage, Solanin, Pretty Cure DX2, Avatar (it's going to see a huge screen loss thanks to 3/4 of it's screens being 3D and Alice on the way) or Sherlock Holmes, and the re-release of Nodame Cantabile Part I since it's re-release is for one week only. Why?

Toho, Japan's largest distributor by a huge margin, is releasing the 14th and 18th installments for Detective Conan and Crayon Shin-chan the same weekend again. Last year, Detective Conan opened at No.1 to $6m and finished with $36m, while Crayon Shin-chan opened to No.4 to $1.7m and finished with $12m.

Toho is also releasing Part II of Nodame Cantabile. Nodame Cantable Part I opened at No.2 last Dec. to $4.4m and wen't on to gross over 4b yen (or $44m) so far.

And then Disney decided to move Alice in Wonderland from April 14th to April 17th. Alice in Wonderland has been receiving a great deal of buzz for months now. And if Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could gross over $40m on less than 300 screens (5th biggest film of 2005), Alice in Wonderland is definitely going to top it with what will be a much larger release and 3D ticket prices.

So, basically, the Top 10 will be totally reshaped this coming weekend.

______________________________________________________________________________

Current Top 10 Most Popular Films:

1. Shutter Island; same as yesterday
2. Pirates of the Caribbean 4; up 2 spots
3. District 9; down 1 spot
4. Nodame Cantabile Part II; up 2 spots
5. Alice in Wonderland; down 2 spots
6. Nodame Cantabile Part I; up 8 spots
7. Solanin; down 2 spots
8. My Darling is a Foreigner; down 1 spot
9. Avatar; up 3 spots
10. The Hurt Locker; down 2 spots

January-February Box Office is up 26% compared to last year earning Y33b or about $350m for the two month period. 2009's yearly total came in at $2.28b, the second highest year ever. The significant increase is of course due to Avatar for the most part, as well as the other strong holdovers from December. 2010 has a very good chance, if not a 100% chance, of becoming the biggest year ever with many big releases this year: Alice in Wonderland, Nodame Cantabile Part II, Bayside Shakedown 3, The Borrower Arrietty (Studio Ghibli), Toy Story 3, Pokemon 13, Umizaru 3, and Harry Potter 7 Part I all come to mind as potential or easy $50m+ earners (3x that in Bayside's case).

1. Shutter Island Paramount Int'l $2,937,750 1 442 $6,646 0 $3,691,285
2. District 9 Warner Bros Int'l $1,776,784 1 204 $8,710 0 $1,776,784
3. My Darling is a Foreigner Toho $1,318,042 1 256 $5,149 0 $1,318,042
4. Avatar Fox Int'l $1,026,077 16 436 $2,353 -24 $163,905,121
5. Doraemon: Nobita's South Sea Adventure Toho $836,798 6 354 $2,364 -52 $32,104,289
6. Sherlock Holmes Warner Bros Int'l $826,612 5 436 $1,896 -34 $21,535,089
7. Solanin Asmik Ace $703,045 2 108 $6,510 -29 $2,743,953
8. Pretty Cure All Stars DX2: Light of Hope - Protect the Rainbow Jewel! TOEI $676,620 4 160 $4,229 -36 $11,022,018
9. Liar Game: The Final Stage Toho $530,054 6 283 $1,873 -49 $23,973,356
10. Nodame Cantabile The Movie I Toho $388,009 17 295 $1,315 0 $43,019,699

Good debuts for Shutter Island and District 9.
Shutter Island will need to gross more than $13m to pass The Departed which is doable and likely.

My Darling is a Foreigner opens decent, but it could have been better with the size of the release. Toho's goal for it is Yb or about $11m.

Avatar continues it's strong run seeing a good drop. It'll need to make what it can over the next week or two as it's going to get hit by Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, and the DVD release within a span of 6 days.

Doraemon sees a rather huge drop this weekend for some reason. It lost 12 screens, but those alone can't be the reason behind the drop. This drop puts $40m in question. Not that failing to reach $40m would be poor, it's already surpassed last year's film by 30%.

Sherlock Holmes hangs in there with a solid week. It should finish around $25m, with a high 20m finish in reach if it's not hit too hard over the next few weeks.

And Liar Game is another film that has remained strong since it opened that saw a harsh drop this weekend. No screen loss, but this is the first weekend in the past 3 that has seen strong openers. $30m is still possible, but it's going to be tough with the competition coming up soon.

Nodame Cantabile Part I was re-released for one week only to get fans ready for Nodame Cantabile Part II which opens this coming weekend. Solid re-release.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Avatar (Variety/BOM), after 16 weeks:

Spirited Away - $213.5m ($5.5m week)
Howl's Moving Castle - $174.1m (no change)*
Avatar - $163.9m ($3.9m week)/$162.6m ($2.6m week)
Bayside Shakedown 2 - $155.1m ($1m week)
Ponyo - $152.5m ($10m week)*
Harry Potter 1 - $152.5m ($ -0.5m)*
Harry Potter 2 - $142.8m ($0.4m week)

*These films experienced mistakes and/or exchange rate issues at BOM their 16th week. Howl staying flat, Ponyo gaining 10m, and Potter 1 dropping 0.5m.

USD: All Time



Yen: All Time



There is also going to be some issues with the final totals (USD totals) now for Harry Potter 1/2 and Bayside Shakedown 2 in the weekly updates now that we've come this far.

BOM has the Potter totals being what their total was after their 16th weekend. Same goes for Bayside Shakedown 2. It's probably safe to assume they did a little bit more since BOM tends to be a bit lower with final totals due mostly to no longer tracking the film. A final total is never updated.

Luckily in the local films' cases, other sources have their totals. Toho Kingdom had Bayside Shakedown 2. And Jason Gray of Screendaily released the total for Ponyo in his yearly box office reports. I've never been able to find any concrete number for Howl's Moving Castle, so the $190m is the only one we have.

Also, tracking Avatar may prove to be very difficult (unless it's still included in BOMS select films below the Top 10) soon because it stands a chance of falling out of the Top 10 this coming weekend. And if it hangs on, it'll leave the Top 10 for sure April 24-25. The weeks of one or small openers came to an end last week.

Here are the Most Popular Eiga Films a day before the weekend,

4/16

1. Shutter Island
2. District 9
3. Alice in Wonderland (4/17)
4. Nodame Cantabile Part II (4/17)
5. Nodame Cantabile Part I
6. Death Game (10/16)
7. My Darling is a Foreigner
8. Solanin
9. Avatar
10. Sherlock Holmes
11. Clash of the Titans (4/23)
12. The Hurt Locker
13. Nine
14. Orchestra! (4/17)
15. Kimi ni Todoke (From Me To You) (9/25)
16. Resident Evil 4 (9/10)
17. Detective Conan: Lost Sky Ship (4/17)
18. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
19. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (May 2011)
20. Outrage (6/12)

Opening this Week
Future Release



VS

VS


All three have equal chance of topping this weekend.

And the day has come for one of the biggest (likely the biggest outside of this summer) weekends of the year.

Eiga Most Searched Films: 4/17

1. Shutter Island
2. District 9
3. Alice in Wonderland (4/17)
4. Nodame Cantabile The Movie II (4/17)
5. Nodame Cantabile The Movie I
6. Detective Conan 14: Lost Sky Ship (4/17)
7. Avatar
8. My Darling is a Foreigner
9. Detective Conan 13: Raven Chaser
10. Solanin
11. Crayon Shin-chan 18: Super Dimension (4/17)
12. Sherlock Holmes
13. The Hurt Locker
14. Orchestra! (4/17)
15. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (May 2011)
16. Kimi ni Todoke (From Me To You) (9/25)
17. Outrage (6/12)
18. Nine
19. Clash of the Titans (4/23)
20. Sex and the City 2 (6/4)

Opening this Week
Future Release


Top 3 Opener's Predecessors:

Title/Opening Weekend/Total
Detective Conan: Raven Chaser - $6m/$37.6m (Y3.50b)
Nodame Cantabile The Movie I - $4.4m/$43m (Y4.1b)
Charlie in the Chocolate Factory - $4.3m/$44.5m (Y5.35b)

I really hope Nodame wins the weekend...

Also,





Why does it say 44.3m on the top 10 grossing movies of 2010 so far list but only 43.0m on the weekend box office report?

$44.3m or so is a slightly more accurate number. The film has grossed Y4.1b, which is about $44.3m. I think the $43m number comes from BOM and Variety simply adding the almost 400k it made last weekend in it's re-release to their $42.6m total before they stopped tracking it. Similar to This Is It. This Is It's final gross was $57.5m after it's re-release, but BOM is slightly less at $56.6m. BOM also includes Dec. releases into their yearly charts, but Dec. films are always counted towards the following year.

Top 10 Last Year:


You can see the differences (mostly sites such as BOM being slightly lower overall).


Also, given the size of the openers this weekend, I may be able to find opening day numbers soon.

And while no concrete opening numbers, some info is being released.



Alice in Wonderland opened on a massive 877 screens (454 3D). Which I think is the second biggest release ever behind At World's End (881 screens). This is more than 2x the screens Charlie and the Chocolate Factory received, and almost 100 more 3D screens than Avatar received. They are saying they're expecting the premier to be about 700m yen which would be close to $7.5m, which is massive because I think that's the opening day projection since it compares it to the 370m yen ($4m) Avatar grossed it's first day. If it is talking about the opening day itself, Alice would be looking at a 2day around $13/14m. Which is super huge, and suggest a final total over $70m if WOM isn't killer. But keep in mind it COULD still be the 2day projection, I can't make it out clearly but it sounds like the first take.

And not too much about Nodame Cantabile The Movie II yet, but reports do say attendance is greatly up from the first movie.

If the $7.5m or so is indeed Alice's first day though, it's going to take the weekend with ease. But Alice was probably the favorite anyway. Local films rarely opening to very big numbers, while the opposite is usually the case with foreign films. Local films (Smaller Openings, Bigger Legs), Foreign Films (Bigger Openings, Smaller Legs).


EDIT: About 700m yen is indeed the opening day number, with reports saying it could gross around 1.5b yen for the 2day weekend or about $16m. Only Bayside Shakedown 3 stands a chance of beating that number this year. And 1.5b yen ($16m) would be one of the biggest 2days ever. Pirates 2 opened around $16m also over it's 2day opening and grossed $82m for comparison.

Nodame Cantabile The Movie II's opening day ceremony (cast members and such attend) sold 11,495 tickets. Last year, the opening day ceremony for Rookies The Movie also sold about 12,000 tickets which was reported to be the highest amount for such an event. Rookies The Movie went on opened to $12.9m to have the biggest opening weekend of the year to finish on top of the year with $94.5m.

Although, Rookies The Movie also sold 240,000 tickets in advanced (980,000 total for the 2day) and I don't know if Nodame Cantabile The Movie II had advanced sales of that level. I certainly wouldn't expect Nodame Cantabile to come close to Rookies opening day/weekend, but the opening day ceremony matching it is an obvious good sign.


This weekend might be even bigger than I was expecting (about $21m for the top 3 openers).

So, we're definitely looking at $60+ million for Alice and maybe even at $80+ million...right?

$60m+ should be easy, and $80m is definitely possible unless it's extremely frontloaded like Indiana Jones was.

Here are a few more comparisons using Alice's estimated opening day figure of 700m yen ($7.5m) and possible 1.5b yen ($16m) weekend, though I think it'll be closer to 1.4b ($15m).

Biggest 2day Opening Weekends over the past 2 years:



Indiana Jones is the only one that had a reported opening day higher than Alice's current estimated opening day, but Indy was very, very frontloaded. It should have cleared $15m it's opening weekend, but it had a significant drop it's 2nd day and the big drops just never got any better.

It's possible Alice is also frontloaded (Pirates 2 and Indy both dropped 60% their 2nd weekends), but I have a hard time seeing it become as frontloaded as Indy was.

The Pirate films might be the best comparisons here instead of Indy I feel. Pirates 2 opened to Y1.4b ($16.5m) over 2days, and Pirates 3 opened to Y1.47b ($15.9m) over 3days. Their runs however are much, much different. A multiplier of 5 for Pirates 2, while Pirates 3 got a multiplier of 8.5.

And the exciting news for this huge weekend keeps coming in. It should be the biggest weekend of the year behind the July 3rd-4th weekend when Bayside Shakedown 3 opens I'd say, and maybe the next couple weeks in July since Toy Story 3, new Studio Ghibli, Pokemon 13, and Surely Someday all open.




For Toho to expect the sequel to top the first movie by 70% in total must mean the results of it's opening day were very strong. The first movie opened last Dec. to $4.4m and finished with $43/$44m.

Could prove to be a close finish between Nodame and Alice in total in the months to come. 2010 is becoming very huge.

It's not going to happen, but with Toho already expecting over Y6b or $65m and 70% more than the original (which would mean over $70m) after the opening day, a second place finish this weekend is certainly nothing to be concerned about.

This weekend was really a surprise. It was already poised to be one of the biggest of the year with Alice, Nodame, and Conan, but the first two have really surpassed expectations and it looks as though it'll be just as big as the bigger Summer weekends to come this year. Still no numbers for Conan, the other big opener this weekend, but a third place finish this weekend is going to look so strange for it. Toho has released a Conan film every year since 1998 and it's won this weekend each year since 2002, perhaps even earlier. The long running series is a major player in the market. I still expect great numbers for it, but they're going to look a bit underwhelming this year despite doing it's usual business.

Alice in Wonderland opens to Y1.3b (or $14m). This is the second biggest debut for a non-sequel foreign film behind Harry Potter 1, and Disney's highest behind the Pirates.

I'll post some comparisons and some projected patterns it could take from here soon.