I wont spoil your fun but Lelouch is no where near GOD though his father thinks he is. There is no way he is turning into one. Though till the end of second part you will feel like that but the end is again mind-blowing.

http://markets.nikkei.co.jp/kokunai/teg ... 2025022010

Nice for the animation branch of Toei. And so far the studio is having a good start to 2010 overall.

Hmm, it might be close between Avatar and Ponyo now.

I am thinking that the chances to cross 200M are totally falling apart now in Japan and the most it can do is 170-175M

I just finished the anime,

Estimates have been a little high the past few weeks, but Avatar is est to having a $4m 10th weekend (-12%) for a total of $140m. It jumps ahead of a few films ahead of it on a weekly basis, and the test now will be if it can develop the late legs all of them (except the two Potters which are near the end of their runs) received due to their 4-6 month contracts.


After 10 weeks,

Spirited Away - $184.1m ($4.7m weekend)
Howl's Moving Castle - $159.8m ($3.0m weekend)
Avatar - $140m est ($4.0m est weekend)
Bayside Shakedown 2 -$137.7m ($1.8m weekend)
Harry Potter 1 - $137m ($2.7m) - No week 10 data, so this is a guess based on week 11.
Ponyo - $133.9m ($1.5m weekend)
Harry Potter 2 - $133.8m ($1.8m weekend)
Titanic - $71m ($2.9m weekend)


Top 20 in USD




Top 20 in Yen




Percy Jackson also did very, very well with a $4.1m opening weekend. It could do $20m now, but it seems that was only good enough for No.2. And if Avatar did $4m, I guess Saru Lock The Movie had a big opening.

1. Saru Lock The Movie - I'll try to find it.
2. Percy Jackson - $4.1m
3. Avatar - $4m

Gonna be a very nice weekend.

Where did you get Japan numbers?

Hollywood Reporter. I usually get them there first, but it's only US films they report (though they've been a little high the past few weeks on the films they report), and then use Eiga, Yahoo.jp (Yahoo beats Google in Japan), Jason Gray's blog (writes for Screen Daily, Japan Times from Tokyo), Japan Times, and just a bunch of other sites that sometimes release information. Gotta look for Saru Lock The Movie using them now.

Looking good to at least overtake Ponyo.

Thanks.

*goes checking HR...*

Yeah, it should become the No.4 film All-Time. The only thing that would prevent that from happening is if it begins losing screens soon, something Bayside 2, Ponyo, Howl, and Spirited Away were safe from for due to their contracts with Toho (4-6 months of losing no screens from their locations).

Next weeks openers:

March 6th
Liar Game The Movie: Final Stage (yes, another drama/manga adaptation). From what I can tell, buzz is solid, and final movies always do well.
Princess and the Frog
The Hurt Locker
Tekken


Edit: Pretty sure Avatar beat Percy Jackson this weekend. The HR never mentions when a film is a 2day or 3day opener, and Percy was a 3day. So it's 3day is est. at $4.1m (much like how they reported Valentine's Day and It's Complicated's 3day as their weekend total). The weekend total is likely around $3.4m or so. So that might mean Avatar was No.1 again, which would make sense because Saru Lock wasn't getting a huge amount of attention to open over $4m (for a local film, that'd likely lead to $35m+ total).

Hmm, I'm thinking around $174-176 million for Avatar's total. Would be amazing, though, if it somehow crawled past $180 million.

One good note about this weekend is that Avatar seems to have matched it's weekdays during the weekend again. Have to wait and see the actuals though since estimates have been pretty high the past few weeks.

When a film makes a significant amount more on the weekends than on the weekdays, it usually means the film is going to have poor legs, or if it's already been in release for several weeks, is probably heading towards it's final total soon. Which is what happened last week to Avatar (3.5m weekdays vs 4.5m weekend). True longevity comes from the weekdays.

Do you still think that Bayside Shakedown 3 will outdo Avatar?

I think it will, but it's certainly not a sure thing. Avatar still has months left. And Bayside Shakedown 3 is still 4.5 months before it's release, but it appears to be in really good shape. It was just recently the most popular film on Eiga after some more casting news was released.

They have the original cast members back, some that were in the original movie but not the sequel, as well as cast members who were in the TV show but not the first two films. Toho is definitely doing to break the local screen count record with it too, I'm sure. As you probably know, there aren't many screens in Japan and they only see small single digit increase each year (less than 2% last year). The most you'll see a local film get currently is 400-450 (Ponyo holds the record with around 480 though). The total screen count hasn't changed much at all since 2003, Bayside Shakedown 2 was the first local film to get over 400 (408), and I'm willing to bet Toho plans for Bayside Shakedown 3 to be the first to play on over 500 screens.

Toho has grown a lot since 2003 (as has the Japanese film industry itself). Toho has always dominated the market (representing nearly 1/3 each year) thanks to distributing the bigger TV shows from Fuji TV and films from Studio Ghibli, but their earnings each year is very impressive. In 2003 Toho films earned $443m, and now they are making close to double that ($817m in 2008, $725m in 2009) due to how the market has changed so much for local films since 2006.

So, factoring in how different the market is now compared to 2003, Bayside Shakedown's huge fanbase that spreads two decades, the current TV show boom, Toho's continued strength, and what may be the most important of all, the current exchange rate (just look what Ponyo did in 2008 despite not really coming too close to Princess Mononoke or Howl in local currencty), Bayside Shakedown 3 should be able to clear $165m "easy" enough I think. It would need to gross about Y14.5b to do so, and that's close to a 20% drop from Bayside Shakedown 2. A drop that size isn't likely. I can't find many examples where a second sequel dropped from the first sequel. Pirates, 20th Century Boys, LOTR, tons of Pokemon, Detective Conan, all increased.

I can't believe I missed what is likely to top next week's box office "next weeks openers" update above. The latest Doraemon movie.



Toho always releases the latest movie on this weekend almost annually, and they consistently open to about $4m ($4.3m is the avg of the last 4 films), and finish around $30m. If you don't know about Doraemon, it's a manga that's been around since the 70's that later spawned an anime that has over 2,000 episodes and still going strong. He's sort of Japan's Mickey Mouse if you will, an icon everyone knows and loves.

I also missed Ninja Assassin, so the complete list of openers this coming week is:

March 6th
Doraemon The Legend
Liar Game The Movie: Final Stage
The Princess and the Frog
The Hurt Locker
Tekken
Ninja Assassin

Going to see several films bumped out of the top 10 this week.

And as I was updating the outdated release schedule I was using, the week after next is going to be very crowded just like this coming weekend, and some of the crowded weeks last month, several big films are opening. I'll save that update for next week though.

Nice Japan was the number 1 market for the weekend for Avatar. The competition next week is really huge, I bet the Top10 will change completely.

Hey Corpse one question how about War Movies like "THL" how do they generally fare in Japan?

But how come that local films don't get more screens? I mean especially recently most local films have outdone the Hollywood ones and even historically if you think of how huge the Ghibli films are...

Avatar opened with over 800 (!) screens in Japan, how come no local production has even hit 500 yet?

To be honest, I'm not sure. My only guess is there are just more screens run by foreign companies. Normally the bigger local films get 250-350. Toho is the only distributor who can get near or over 400. Hollywood films have always received much bigger releases, basically double what the local films get. But local films have shown many times the number of screens isn't too important, at least in terms of box office potential. Two films last year for example (Evangelion 2.0 and One Piece Strong World) never went above 120 screens and 190 screens, yet grossed $44m and $54m which beat every Hollywood film last year except for Michael Jackson and Potter (Avatar and Up will be counted for 2010, as will One Piece). Though it would be interesting to see how local films would perform if they were given more screens.


Feb 27-28 Admission Rankings:



1 NEW Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief FOX 1
2 1 Avatar FOX 10
3 2 Oceans GAGA 6
4 NEW Sarulock SDP/Showgate 1
5 3 About Her Brother/Younger Brother Shochiku 5
6 NEW Sergeant Keroro - The Super Duper Movie - Adventure In Space - Time Island Kadokawa 1
7 5 The Fallin Angel Kadokawa 2
8 4 It's Complicated Toho Towa 2
9 12 The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya KadokawaShoten/Klock Work 4
10 6 The Negotiator The Movie Toei 3

Avatar could still be No.1 in yen/dollar rankings, there are some reports saying it stayed on top for it's 10th consecutive week, but then there are others which have Percy on top. I think Avatar is going to be No.1 when numbers are released in a few days though if only because of ticket prices (and Percy was a 3day opener, not 2day), though this is the first time it's not been No.1 in admissions since it opened.

Oceans continues it's big run.
Saru Lock The Movie sees a decent debut.
Younger Brother refuses to leave the Top 5.
Haruhi Suzmiya makes a surprise return to the top 10. It's only been playing on 24 screens receiving huge PTA's the past 3 weeks (44k, 24k, 18k).
The Blind Side missed the top 10 entirely.




I'm not sure without looking them up, but from what I recall they do okay. The Hurt Locker has been in the Top 10 on Eiga for several weeks now, but that's probably due to the award buzz surrounding it.

That should be a perfect opening weekend for THL when it is highly likely to get the big Trophy

Good for Percy. The biggest opening so far in any market and most likely will end up being its biggest market in terms of $$$

Feb. 27-28, 2010

1. Avatar Fox Int'l $4,036,232 10 606 $6,660 -9 $141,524,593
2. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: Lightning Fox Int'l $3,411,348 1 561 $6,081 0 $4,155,371
3. Oceans GAGA $1,018,760 6 302 $3,373 -8 $23,721,299
4. Saru Lock THE MOVIE Showgate $1,011,142 1 226 $4,474 0 $1,011,142
5. Younger Brother Shochiku $700,823 5 305 $2,298 -14 $17,545,911
6. Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, The Kadokawa-Herald/Klock Work $674,873 4 24 $28,120 +52 $5,089,216
7. Sergeant Keroro Kadokawa-Herald $674,281 1 144 $4,683 0 $674,281
8. Fallen Angel, The Kadokawa-Herald $649,771 2 154 $4,219 -27 $2,768,248
9. It's Complicated Toho Towa $576,933 2 286 $2,017 -36 $3,145,810
10. Coraline GAGA $527,051 2 128 $4,118 -24 $1,786,400



As expected, Avatar remains on top even with fewer admissions than Percy Jackson this weekend. And overall it was a very impressive week for Avatar after last week. Avatar still has plenty left in it and it'll be interesting to see about where it finishes in a few months. Alice in Wonderland may cripple it, but that's still 6 weeks away.

Percy Jackson opens higher than I thought it would. Buzz wasn't too great until the final day before release. But given the large release Fox gave it, perhaps not too unexpected considering that. Could be a potential Y2b ($21/22m) film.

Oceans continues it's great run, though the weekdays seem to have slowed down a little. It should pass Earth after this coming weekend.

Saru Lock the Movie opens decently, but I was expecting something more since there haven't been too many films targeting the teen/young adult audience so far this year. Reviews are quite bad, however, so that may have contributed to the mediocre opening.

Younger Brother is probably the most successful film to open so far this year (not including Avatar, One Piece, Up, or Nodame Cantabile which were Dec. releases, but count as 2010 releases). Oceans will end up with a higher total, but given Earth performed very well, it was expected to do pretty well. Younger Brother will cross $20m in a couple weeks.

The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, the first film based on the popular anime/light novel, has been performing very well the past 4 weeks on 24 screens. It's PTA hasn't fallen below $18,000, and the studio this week launched a campaign for the film where viewers can exchange their ticket stubs for a bookmark made from the 35mm film reels of the movie. So fans came out in full force again to see it this weekend and delivered a $28,000 PTA in it's 4th weekend, jumping from No.12 to No.6.



The market is in need for some fresh movies, and this weekend will deliver several in Doaremon, Liar Game, Princess and the Frog, Ninja Assassin, and The Hurt Locker.

Great week, indeed.

I'm still holding out hope for $200m. Those legs can be deceiving, though. It could easily drop like -40% for the next 2 weeks which would change its prospects dramaticaly.

$200m is possible. It's starting to become more comparable with Howl's Moving Castle than it is with Ponyo now. Avatar grossed about $1m more than Howl did in their 10th weekends, but Howl's 10 week total is about $19m higher than Avatar's. If Avatar holds like a well-received local film that just opened to $4m, it can add another $40m or so to it's current total. I'd say $180m is a good target right now. $200m not out of the question though, especially if it wins BP at the Oscars. The Oscars seem to have a big effect on films in Japan because practically all the Best Picture Nominees (the only one I don't see is An Education) are in the Top 40 most popular films right now on Eiga.

While this isn't box office related, it's post-worthy.



Last I read, One Piece Film Strong World was nearing Y5b (Y4.75b I think), which is about $55m. I always loved this (also shows how far some have to travel to find a theater in Japan),


The film broke the all-time PTA record for a movie opening on over 100 screens.