Japan Times said that Ghibli's classic hits Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro were underperformed at the box office, is that true?

Yes. Kiki's Delivery Service was the first box-office success for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

I forgot to post this list back on Monday/Tuesday, but Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire likely exceeded the ¥5 billion blockbuster milestone on its 18th day in release, or possibly even its 17th day once actuals come in next week. It's the fastest film in the long-running franchise to reach the milestone, and the fourth overall.

Fastest To ¥5 billion (Blockbuster Milestone) - 24 Days or Less

10 - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
11 - The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
12 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
13 - Spirited Away (2001)
13 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
14 - Beauty and the Beast (2017)
14 - Your Name. (2016)
14 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
14 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
14 - Bayside Shakedown: Save the Rainbow Bridge! (2003)
15 - Jurassic World (2015)
15 - Yo-Kai Watch: It's the Secret of Birth, Nyan! (2014)
15 - Alice in Wonderland (2010)
15 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
16 - Ponyo (2008)
16 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
16 - The Da Vinci Code (2006)
16 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
17 - Code Blue (2018)
17 - Frozen (2014)
17 - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
17 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
17 - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
18 - Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (2019) *Awaiting Actual*
18 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
18 - Rookies (2009)
18 - Spider-Man 3 (2007)
18 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
19 - Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
20 - Umizaru: The Last Message (2010)
21 - Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer (2018)
21 - The Wind Rises (2013)
21 - One Piece Film Z (2012)
21 - Hero (2007)
22 - Avatar (2009)
22 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2004)
22 - Finding Nemo (2003)
22 - Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
22 - Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
23 - Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter (2017)
23 - Big Hero 6 (2014)
23 - Arrietty (2010)
24 - Toy Story 3 (2010)
24 - The Last Samurai (2003)

Note: Not enough data for films released before 2000 to be included on this list, primarily including: Titanic, Princess Mononoke, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Armageddon, Jurassic Park, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Antarctica -- all of which likely exceeded ¥5 billion before 24 days (4 weeks) in release.

Before I post Sunday's Estimates, here are responses to some questions this past week that I couldn't get around to answering:



Alright, Sound! Euphonium The Movie: Oath's Finale debuted in fifth place two weeks ago, earning ¥66,001,400 ($590,000) over its debut weekend, and grossed ¥93,022,800 ($831,000) after its first three days. Since then, its second weekend hasn't been released yet (none have due to holidays), but it dropped around 50% to ¥33 million ($295,000) with an estimated two-week total of ¥160 million ($1.4 million). I have it estimated at about ¥70 million from this past Monday through Friday, for an est. total of ¥230 million ($2.1 million) heading into this weekend. It's going to have a strong third weekend hold, too.

Liz and the Blue Bird narrowly missed the Top 10 in its debut last year, earning ¥53.5 million ($496,000) over its debut weekend. No data is available for its second weekend, but I have it dropping around 43% to ¥31 million ($285,000), for an est. two-week total of ¥115 million ($1.0 million). That's the end of its tracking that I performed since it fell far down the charts at that point, but taking last year's Golden Week into account, I'd estimate that it finished around ¥250 million ($2.2/2.3 million).



Miss Hokusai debuted to ¥17.4 million ($146,000) over its debut weekend in 2015. It then experienced a severe 61% drop in its second weekend to earn around ¥7 million ($59,000), bringing its two-week total to an estimated ¥35 million ($295,000). That ended its tracking, but if I had to guess, I'd say it ended up finishing with ¥50 million ($420,000) or so.

I wasn't tracking the box-office for long when Colorful opened, but it appears to have done significantly better than Miss Hokusai, earning around ¥350 million ($4 million) in 2010.

I don't think I missed anyone else's questions, but if I did, post them again, please.

Sunday was a bit lower overall than I was expecting, it's usually stronger than Saturday by a fair bit, but in hindsight I'm not surprised. Sunday is the 7th-consecutive national holiday, the first time that's ever happened in the market, so I imagine there has to be a cool-down point eventually. Tomorrow, Monday, is the final day in this epically long holiday period, so it's going to be interesting to see how the first ever Super Golden Week affects the box-office afterwards.

Thanks a lot!!!

Based on that list, I'm guessing Detective Pikachu will finish under the ¥3 billion mark? It doesn't have the summer weekdays that the animated Pokemon films have, so I'm not sure what kind of multiplier to expect.

Probably between ¥2.5-3 billion (~$25 million). It is difficult to predict what sort of legs this one will have right now, though. I don't really know which demographics it's appealing to yet. Its hourly ticket sales throughout the day suggests it's not appealing toward families/children much, so that should be good for its legs since May/June are dismal months for younger skewing films. But, it's also not appealing strongly towards adults, otherwise its evening/night ticket sales would have been stronger. So... my guess, right now, is that it's sort of attracting a little bit of various demos. And that's not surprising to me if true, because I always thought it would have trouble appealing to any one demographic in Japan. Too "childish" for adults, too "dark" for children.

Once its weekend numbers are revealed, hopefully on Tuesday, I'll see what its average ticket price was over the weekend. That's the easiest way to determine which demos are actually watching it.

Is there any indication on what audiences think of it yet? Audience reviews / ratings maybe?

I don't know but that feels like a dire opening for Detective Pikachu. It's Japan, and there's a reason they opened if there first, and that is a lame opening.

Is there any indication on what audiences think of it yet? Audience reviews / ratings maybe?[/quote]

Audience scores are averaging 3/5 on various movie sites.

The Pokemon films have never had huge opening weekends. They've consistently delivered good/great openings, but nothing spectacular. Detective Pikachu falls in the middle of the pack.

One might say "but this is the first live-action film, it'll be huge!", but that's sort of a negative in the market, one of many cons that it had. Its list of cons was much large than its pros, so to mostly overcome them (even if it's a boring debut) is still pretty impressive.

And that concludes the first ever Super Golden Week, a consecutive 8-day national holiday period.

The Weekend Actuals for 04/27-28 and 05/04-05, and updates totals for other notable films outside the Top 10, should either be released tomorrow, or possibly on Wednesday.

Now that holidays are over, where do you see Endgame finish? ¥5B or ¥6B

Corpse, I came across this WW admissions summary with a breakdown by market which suggests that Ben-Hur had 16.11m admissions in Japan, does this seem credible to you?

Weekend numbers and totals are coming in, and it is above ¥4 billion after Sunday, but I may have been over-estimating it a bit (¥100/200 million or so), so I want to see what the actual number which should be released later this evening. It'll exceed ¥5 billion, though, no problem. ¥6-7 billion, probably on the low-end of that range, is likely.

I wouldn't rule it out, but it does seem too high. A couple years ago, enzo1988 (no longer posts here, but he may lurk) and I worked out some admission estimates for a lot of films without any reported admissions, and we came up with 9.9 million (or 10 million, practically) for Ben-Hur.

That said, many, many older films receive limited re-releases in Japan on a pretty regular basis. For example, I noticed that E.T. was playing (again) a week or two ago. I've seen Gone with the Wind, Terminator, and Ghostbusters also playing this year, and I'm sure there are many others I just didn't notice.

If you add up the numerous re-releases of some films, I wouldn't be surprised if Ben-Hur or other films have much higher overall admissions following their initial theatrical release. Jaws is also significantly higher on that chart than its reported admissions, which, again, is probably a result of dozens of re-releases. It's just that numbers are nearly non-existent for these re-releases.

Weekend Numbers are going to be really scattered from the past two weeks. Most of the weekend actuals are available for this past weekend, but very, very few are up from two weeks ago. I'll post what's available from two weeks ago and update it when/if more are ever made available.

Also, the cumulative totals from this past weekend will be as of MONDAY, not Sunday.

Weekend Actuals (04/27-28)
01 (---) ¥962,000,000 ($8.7 million), 0, ¥1,467,500,000 ($13.3 million), Avengers: Endgame (Disney) NEW
02 (01) ¥618,000,000 ($8.0 million), -30%, ¥4,700,000,000 ($42.5 million), Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (Toho) WK3
03 (02) ¥411,000,000 ($3.7 million), -22%, ¥1,600,000,000 ($14.5million), Kingdom (Toho/Sony) WK2
04 (03) Crayon Shin-chan: Hurricane Honeymoon, The Lost Hiroshi (Toho) WK2
05 (04) Shazam! (Warner Bros.) WK2
06 (07) Tonde Saitama (Toei) WK10
07 (---) Toei Anime Festival (Toei) NEW
08 (05) Sound! Euphonium The Movie: Oath's Finale (Shochiku) WK2
09 (06) Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of Moon Exploration (Toho) WK9
10 (---) Birthday Wonderland (Warner Bros.) NEW

The top 3 films above are the only three with any numbers revealed so far, so I'm just going to post their numbers and just the weekend rankings of the remaining seven films. I'll then fill in the rest of the numbers when/if they're made available later this week. As a result, the % changes from this past weekend for every other film will be labeled as N/A for the time being.

Weekend Actuals (05/04-05)
01 (02) ¥587,101,500 ($5.3 million), -05%, ¥7,520,651,500 ($68.6 million), Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (Toho) WK4
02 (01) ¥533,000,000 ($4.8 million), -45%, ¥4,086,469,300 ($37.0 million), Avengers: Endgame (Disney) WK2
03 (---) ¥457,000,000 ($4.1 million), 0, ¥947,984,000 ($8.6 million), Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (Toho) NEW
04 (03) ¥435,562,500 ($3.9 million), +06%, ¥3,527,930,200 ($31.6 million), Kingdom (Toho/Sony) WK3
05 (04) ¥192,237,700 ($1.7 million), N/A, ¥1,641,596,400 ($14.7 million), Crayon Shin-chan: Honeymoon Hurricane, The Lost Hiroshi (Toho) WK3
06 (---) ¥x,00,000,000 ($000,000), 0, ¥158,578,700 ($1.4 million), Kakegurui (Gaga) NEW
07 (05) ¥x45,227,000 ($408,000), N/A, ¥638,832,000 ($5.8 million), Shazam! (Warner Bros.) WK3
08 (06) ¥x34,137,900 ($308,000), N/A, ¥3,644,340,800 ($33.0 million), Tonde Saitama (Toei) WK11
09 (---) King of Prism: Shiny Seven Star IV (Aniplex) NEW
10 (09) ¥x27,888,400 ($252,000), N/A, ¥4,945,496,100 ($44.9 million), Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of Moon Exploration (Toho) WK10

Aaaaaand Bohemian Rhapsody is up to ¥12.99 billion ($116.5 million) on 9.39 million admissions after 172 days in release.

So Endgame missed 1b OW...hmm