This upcoming weekend has potential to become one of the biggest of the year (along with next weekend, and the first two weekends of August), so here's how ticket sales look for Saturday at the moment:

Toho Cinemas Umeda
334 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
300 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
155 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

Toho Cinemas Ebina
232 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
142 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
61 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

Toho Cinemas Fuchu
170 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
133 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
45 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

Movix Shinjuku
653 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
322 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
185 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

Movix Miyoshi
213 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
183 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
100 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

Movix Saitama
163 - The Boy and the Beast (NEW)
120 - Terminator: Genisys (NEW)
55 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Week 2)

I'll post the Saturday Seating/Showtimes (Weekend Preview) tomorrow evening.

The Boy and The Beast looks to destroy Terminator Genisys.

TG opens tomorrow...

I'm not 100% certain that The Boy and the Beast will beat Terminator: Genisys this weekend, yet. I have little doubt it'll beat its total gross, but the opening could be close. It appears to be leading in pre-sales at the majority of locations, but few locations are by considerable margins.

And it's really difficult for original films to open above the ¥500 million mark (¥300 million is often too high a goal), and a sub-¥500 million debut may not be enough to win the weekend.

Mamoru Hosoda and Studio Chizu are becoming an established brand, but this is only their second film together (Hosoda's fourth overall film). It could still take another effort or two before they're recognized by everyone in the same way as Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, as their successors, before their opening weekends are major events.

It should be noted, though, that Hosoda and Studio Chizu's first film together, 2012's Wolf Children, did become the highest-grossing animated film of all-time that wasn't based on an existing property or brand name.

It'll be airing on NTV Friday before The Boy and the Beast opens, following the broadcast Hosoda's earlier film, Summer Wars last Friday, which earned an impressive 11.8% household rating (beating Toy Story 3 in their head-to-head).

COrpse where do you think TG will land this weekend. How did Salvation do in Japan?

It actually opened today (Friday), and so far it's looking... okay. It'll likely do much better in the evening since everyone is still at work or school right now, but I'm projecting a first day around ¥110 million (almost $1 million) right now.

A Friday of that level would point towards an opening weekend of perhaps ¥400-450 million ($3.3-3.7 million), and a 3-day total of ¥500-550 million ($4.1-4.5 million).

Terminator: Salvation opened to ¥592.1 million ($6.1 million) over its opening weekend, but a huge ¥1.021 billion ($10.5 million) after previews were included. It was quite frontloaded and went on to earn just ¥3.32 billion ($34 million), down 60% compared to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

So, at the moment, it doesn't look like Terminator: Genysis will open as high, but it has a better release date, so legs should be a little stronger. It'll need to open closer to ¥500 million than ¥400 million, though, if it's to match Terminator: Salvation's gross (forget about matching its USD gross, however, with the exchange rate).


I'll post the Weekend Forecast tomorrow.

Yeah USD total is not going to happen. $10.5m seems huge also when you say previews its 3-day Fri-Sun opening right?

No, it had a weekends worth of previews the prior week. Before 2012, previews occurring over the prior weekend weren't uncommon for films and they'd usually get included in the actual opening weekend.

But now films very rarely have any previews, and those that do are limited and don't have them included in the opening weekend gross.

Great update Corpse!

Though I may be getting ahead of myself, any news on Pokemon and your personal predictions? You think we might see a decline from the last entry, and have pre-orders been good?

The Pokemon Company hasn't released any advance ticket sales to my knowledge, which could be a sign they aren't comfortable reporting them. They used to report the ticket sales leading up to a new film's release (since they were always very impressive), but they didn't report any last year either, and last year's film was one of the weakest openings in the franchise history.

The new film should, honestly, see an increase since they're throwing almost every Legendary Pokemon into the film this year and are offering a few different benefits for buying a ticket, but I truly think children and their parents have moved onto Yo-Kai Watch. It's not just the box office results that are down, it's literally every medium that Pokemon is in that's lost significant sales to Yo-Kai Watch. So, we'll see.

Since we're entering the Summer box office season at last, I'll provide more regular updates for the next 6-8 weeks.

Thanks for the response.

They've thrown everything at it, good incentives for pre-purchases, more robust partnerships (Visa & Yahoo initiative) and a continuation of the Pikachu promotion starting in late summer as they always have. Pokemon lost a lot of mindshare in the kids segment due to Yo-Kai Watch sudden popularity; I'm just hoping it does better than last year numbers - there's more competition this year it seems with Inside Out coming out the same week and most likely a good hold from The Boy and the Beast if it performs as planned.

Let's hope it reaches 3 Billion Yen - almost did it last year.

I hope it does better than last year's film, because if it doesn't... I don't know if the franchise will be capable of recovering if Yo-Kai Watch continues to mesmerize children. The child population shrinks every year, so it has no opportunity to gain new fans.

How come Yôkai has hurt Pokemon so much yet franchises like Doraemon and Conan which also attract a lot of kids (especially the former) seem to remain unaffected ?

I mean Pokemon and Yokaî movies come out nearly 6 months apart...That's longer than for both Doraemon and Conan. You wouldn't think the second would hurt the first so much.

Btw I just saw that december will see the first Chibi Maruko-chan movie in 23 years. Given that it's been a staple of Japanese animation for over two decades, what would be your predictions ? And do you have the last movie's total gross ?

Yo-kai Watch and Pokemon are fairly similar, and compete for the the same audience across every medium (tv, games, merchandise, etc.). Yo-kai Watch is the first franchise that has beaten Pokemon in sales across every medium. Its anime ratings are better, its games are selling just as well, and its merchandise sales are WAY stronger.

Doraemon has been around for 6 decades and is a generational property. Kids, their parents, and grandparents all grew up enjoying Doraemon.

And Detective Conan actually has more teens and adult fans than it does children. Its themes are a little too mature for the elementary aged audience. That's why its films have solid weekdays unlike all the others.

I'll check on the last Chibi Maruko-chan film, but I doubt I'll be able to find any numbers for it. It also targets a very young audience, and I expect it'll perform similarly to the Crayon Shin-chan films.

Hourly updates. WOW nice