Biggest Fourth Weekends/Four Week Totals (2000-):

¥1.076 billion, -05%, ¥8.53 billion - Your Name. (2016)
¥972.2 million, -19%, ¥8.43 billion - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
¥953.2 million, -06%, ¥8.45 billion - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
¥940.0 million, +06%, ¥10.75 billion - Spirited Away (2001)
¥922.9 million, -21%, ¥8.13 billion - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
¥879.2 million, -12%, ¥7.22 billion - Aladdin (2019)
¥850.9 million, -04%, ¥7.71 billion - Frozen (2014)
¥780.1 million, -26%, ¥7.34 billion - Frozen II (2019)
¥765.7 million, +07%, ¥7.20 billion - Bayside Shakedown: Save the Rainbow Bridge! (2003)
¥755.2 million, -03%, ¥7.21 billion - Ponyo (2008)
¥733.5 million, -27%, ¥7.11 billion - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
¥683.5 million, -27%, ¥7.45 billion - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
¥657.9 million, -05%, ¥6.23 billion - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
¥645.2 million, -17%, ¥7.51 billion - Weathering With You (2019)
¥619.6 million, -25%, ¥8.24 billion - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
¥618.6 million, -23%, ¥6.02 billion - Rookies (2009)
¥617.1 million, +15%, ¥5.41 billion - Toy Story 3 (2010)
¥604.4 million, -22%, ¥7.55 billion - The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
¥587.1 million, -05%, ¥7.52 billion - Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (2019)
¥575.3 million, -35%, ¥7.94 billion - Beauty and the Beast (2017)
¥565.4 million, -12%, ¥5.96 billion - Finding Nemo (2003)
¥556.0 million, -34%, ¥5.91 billion - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
¥551.7 million, -09%, ¥6.22 billion - Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer (2018)
¥546.1 million, -18%, ¥5.72 billion - Big Hero 6 (2014)
¥543.9 million, -07%, ¥5.77 billion - Umizaru: The Last Message (2010)
¥542.8 million, +07%, ¥5.18 billion - The Last Samurai (2003)
¥524.4 million, -26%, ¥6.15 billion - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2004)
¥521.6 million, -52%, ¥8.38 billion - Alice in Wonderland (2010)
¥520.8 million, -01%, ¥3.83 billion - Crying Out Love in the Center of the World (2004)
¥519.9 million, +09%, ¥5.81 billion - Stand By Me, Doraemon (2014)
¥518.5 million, -01%, ¥6.37 billion - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
¥510.3 million, -07%, ¥5.60 billion - The Wind Rises (2013)
¥510.1 million, -20%, ¥5.93 billion - Avatar (2009)
¥503.4 million, -09%, ¥4.19 billion - Monsters, Inc. (2002)
¥501.2 million, -27%, ¥6.26 billion - The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Note: I may go back and add USD figures for this list in the near future.

All done. Feel free to post, and/or ask questions now. *Phew*

Was the last weekend a little bit deflated because this week is final exam week in Japan? And this whole week is going to be deflated too?
How much will likely be the drop for it on this weekend (SW9) debut?
Will it gain a (bigger) bump on next week (23th to 29th Dec) than other movies in the same period because it is a heavy weekend, holiday movie?
What does it need for the rest of the run to touch $150M milestone?
After winter holiday, is there any holiday or something like that in the January and February to give it some more boost?

>Sunday was slightly weaker than normal, so yes, but nothing too significant. Probably less than a 5% difference, really.

>I doubt it's more than 25/30%, and wouldn't be surprised if it holds a bit better than that. If it had a stronger reception and a more popular soundtrack (sales pale in comparison to the original, and the OST hasn't seen a single day at #1 on the charts, or close to it), we'd be looking at a single-digit decrease most likely, but alas, that's not the case this time.

>December 23rd-29th will be strong, but not nearly as strong as Dec. 30th - Jan. 05th. It'll see a huge boost over the weekdays, in particular, where it's been soft due to the November release.

>It needs to drop less than 25/30% this upcoming weekend, and really, really see a big New Year boost the first week of January.

>After New Year and the subsequent Bank Holidays (Jan. 02nd/03rd), the next holidays are as follows: Jan. 13th (Coming of Age Day); Feb. 11th (National Foundation Day); February 23rd (Emperor's Birthday). And then there's Spring Break in late-March.

You think How long its run will be? 4 months?
It is a movie which can work well on holiday but sadly, since its release (already 4 weeks), it has not recieved any single holiday yet. In contrast, Frozen 1 had massive holiday supports very soon and continue...

4-5 months, yeah. 16-20 weeks is the general range for big tentpoles to play in wide release, which is the usual period between major holiday weeks.

Frozen had that perfect mid-March release slot.

If a big film that's well-received opens in mid-March, they're able to greatly benefit from Spring Break in their second/third weeks of release. And from that extra holiday business, they can build momentum to reach late-April on a high-note to then benefit from Golden Week (even bigger than Spring Break) in their seventh/eighth weeks of release. And additionally, May and June tend to be weak months with little major competition (some years are exceptions), so said mid-March release can continue to post huge numbers, and extend its run even further with more momentum from the extra holiday business buzz and interest.

Frozen II is doing great, obviously, and it's easy to understand why Disney would want to release it in Japan day-and-date with the rest of the world, but doing so meant it wasn't going to receive as much holiday support and risk dropping off faster.

Based on some previous movie, how much are the bump a movie can get in next week (christmas week) and the week after that (new year week) in comparing to this week?

[aligntable=][/aligntable][quote="Corpse"][quote="Danhjpn"]Was the last weekend a little bit deflated because this week is final exam week in Japan? And this whole week is going to be deflated too?
How much will likely be the drop for it on this weekend (SW9) debut?

>Sunday was slightly weaker than normal, so yes, but nothing too significant. Probably less than a 5% difference, really.

>I doubt it's more than 25/30%, and wouldn't be surprised if it holds a bit better than that. If it had a stronger reception and a more popular soundtrack (sales pale in comparison to the original, and the OST hasn't seen a single day at #1 on the charts, or close to it), we'd be looking at a single-digit decrease most likely, but alas, that's not the case this time.

It appears that the seats of Frozen II is seriously slashed this weekend.
Around 50%
Can Frozen II drop only 25/30 %
I am worried.

Corpse, how much do you expect from Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur at box office which is releasing on March 2020 and also Stand by Me Doraemon 2 which is releasing on August 2020?

It varies greatly by film. We're literally talking about percentage point differences of 500% or more between some films.

Animated films, or films that skew younger (since not all animated films skew young), naturally do the best in terms of gains. During Christmas Week, they can see week-to-week increases from 50-100% all the way to 500% or more. Films that are attracting a more adult or older audience don't see much of a boost, if any, this week since their audience still have work. Remember that Christmas isn't a holiday.

Then, the opposite sort of occurs during New Year Week. Since adults get New Year and the subsequent Bank Holidays off, adult-driven films enjoy the biggest gains. While films that skew younger tend to stay flat, or can experience declines if they skew too young, when compared to Christmas Week.

Click HERE for last year's Daily Estimates during Christmas Week.

Click HERE for last year's Daily Estimates during New Year Week.

Just scroll down both pages a bit to see them.

The annual (March) Doraemon releases seem to have stabilized around the ¥5 billion mark, after steadily increasing from a reliable ~¥3 billion average for over a decade. I would expect the next film to see a similar result around ¥5 billion.

Not sure about Stand By Me, Doraemon 2. It's probably safe to assume it won't reach the heights of the first film though, which was a huge breakout.

50% of screen cut on this weekend is too much for F2

Don't worry about Frozen II. It's been holding onto an unnecessary huge amount of screens/seating/showtimes since opening, and there hasn't been much to cause a big decline in them until now. And it doesn't need all the seats it's been holding onto, it didn't even fill a third of them last weekend. Whatever the drop is in seating will look bad because of this, but it's nothing to really worry about.

"Only" 25/30% actually wouldn't be that great, just acceptable and what's needed to enter the holiday frame with strong footing. The film is holding fine, don't get me wrong, but for a film of its scale, its third and fourth weekend drops (29% and 26%) have only been "good" not "great". It's common to see sub-20% drops (even single-digit) for a film this big for many weeks.

Yes, if it can drop 25-30% on this weekend, it will be a success.

I don't know Frozen 2 will perform more like a animated movie for youngers or it can attract other ages during the Christmas and New Year week...

Do you think these 2 holiday weeks can be a momentum for movie to continue its run into the new year (Jan,Feb)...

Hi Corpse, what are you expecting about OW and final box office for SW9 ?

For Frozen 2, I saw a lot of analyses that said that frozen 2 will reach $120M not more (so under WWY), I'm not worried about that, it's a good result (but a 50%-60% drop of Frozen). You are an expert about Japan box office and you are expecting something about $140M and $180M, is this $140M the minimum range actually with the current drop and Christmas and new year coming or could Frozen 2 make under $140M actually ? Can you give some details about weekly box office until final cume like made Charlie Jat, because I would like to understand how Frozen 2 could $120M (according to jat), or $140M (your minimal range) or maybe even $180M (your maximal range). Thank you for reading and for the answer

Frozen 2 panic aside, some animated curiosities:

1) Promare, in the vein of doing any and all novelty screenings while refusing to get out of the theaters, will screen with its english dub in Japan. Has there ever been anything of the sort, Corpse? It would fit the movie, considering it plays in a setting very similar to New York, and hell, when the english dub cast was announced there was a bunch of talk from the jp fans side on twitter

2) What are the expectations for this new extended version of In this corner of the world? After its unlikely road from 63 theaters to 2,6 bil yen wide hit, what's the number of theaters and what are its prospects?

And a bonus bit about Promare: after its premiere event in the US, a respectable theatrical run and a second round of theatrical events, it sits at above 2 mil USD and less than 150k under the distributor's GKids current no1 film (Mary and the witch's flower), with the licensor still having the trump card of the second prequel 10-min short to center another event. Actually, the December event outgrossed the 2-day premiere event day-to-day. I would guess that GKids would indeed let the movie grab the no1 spot for as long as it could (they open Tenki no ko in mid-January), since the movie has found a relatively small but dedicated fanbase in the US as well. A bit north of 2 mil USD may sound like droplets but it's a pretty nice sum for an original non-Ghibli and non-megahit anime film in the west

Based on the average ticket price, its ticket sales trend throughout the day, and the softness of the weekdays, we can determine it does skew younger. Not as young as something like Yo-Kai Watch, but children/students/young-adults (which in turn skews female by a noticeable margin) are making up the majority of its audience.

So, it will enjoy a strong bump during Christmas Week which will probably be stronger than its earnings over New Year Week. But it's not skewing so young that I necessarily expect a significant week-to-week decline from Christmas to New Year, rather it'll probably stay flat or see a small decline.

It'll continue to play fine after New Year, just remember that the weekday business will revert back to being softer. The weekend business will remain steady for a good while.

Japan just isn't a market where drawn out weekly predictions for a film are very accurate. It's relatively easy to do this in a market such as the U.S., where many (or most) films of a certain genre often have similar daily/weekly performances as other films of that genre after opening (making comparisons much easier). There aren't as many variables to consider, typically only a film's reception and upcoming competition.

Japan multipliers can go from 4 (considered very low) to more than 15 (7 or so is usually the average), compared to many other major markets having standard multipliers of 3-4.

One can get predict a "likely" finish (range) for a film after a couple weeks in release, the release date, and potential competition, but making predictions, or projections, every week for many weeks in advance doesn't play out very well.

For Frozen II, its path is becoming a bit more clear, but it's not completely certain quite yet.

While its second weekend hold kept the hope of a potential long run ahead, its third and fourth weekend drops, while fine, just aren't good enough for it to spawn the legs of its predecessor or other major uber-blockbusters near the top of the all-time charts. It's behaving more like a "regular" uber-blockbuster, which go on to post good, but not great holds their entire run as they gradually decline week-to-week (holidays weeks aside). A lot of these films end up with multipliers between 10-12, which is what we can expect for Frozen II. That gives it a range between ¥16-19 billion ($145-175 million). Can that range change? Yes, but it's becoming unlikely, so it'll likely fall somewhere within it at the moment.

I don't know who Charlie Jat is, and mean no disrespect, but $120 million would mean a total around ¥13 billion (barely a multiplier of 8). It's over 55% of the way there with no worrisome drops so far, and it has yet to enter the holiday period. I promise it'll do more than that.

It seems that SW9 will win big on this weekend based on the presale number from Toho..

It'll debut at #1 will little trouble, but I'm not seeing any ticket sales right now to suggest it'll beat the opening weekends of the previous two films (it's slightly ahead of The Last Jedi at the moment), at least by much. It could end up matching/beating them though, more or less, since all the prequels and current sequels have comparable opening weekends (when you compare the 3-day totals), clearly indicating a dedicated core fanbase. It's the holds after the opening that go on to differ a good bit.

And Frozen II ended up losing only ~35% of its seating, nowhere near 50%. It's also holding very well against Star Wars on Friday, currently down 15/20% versus last Friday near the mid-day point.

And for our manga/anime fans: My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, the second film based on the popular manga/anime, is looking pretty good this weekend, too, despite the competition. It's hard to compare it to the first film due to the release date difference (December versus August), but it's doing well at the moment.

I'll be tracking Star Wars IX over the weekend (hourly ticket sale updates), and keep updates posted for Frozen II and My Hero Academia as well.

Also, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World debuts this weekend! And while it's not doing too good right now, it appears headed for a Top 10 debut (maybe 8th/9th?), and could end up as the biggest film of the trilogy in the market. It's still too early to make that claim, but it wouldn't take too much.

How to Train Your Dragon bombed in Japan (as most DreamWorks films did), and How to Train Your Dragon 2 didn't even receive a theatrical release (like most DreamWorks films over the past decade). Yet both films did well on home video and received praise from critics and audiences alike. Thankfully, the goodwill the first two films accumulated likely helped the final film in the franchise receive a wide (albeit it not very) release.