Aren't there a lot of movies that release digitally before they get a release in Japan?

Yes, on November 30th by Phantom Film. It was a limited release, playing on just 57 screens, and didn't have its numbers reported. It seems like an odd film to re-release in 4DX, but I'll keep you updated if it performs well.

Happy to see Parasite cracking $40m here.

Indeed, amazing performance. It'll probably finish with about $45 million.

Super bad news for me. I really don't want Olympic to postpone but Canada make the first big move by announcing not to participate this year.

Looks like Australia is following Canada's decision. At this point, it's looking increasingly likely for the Olympics to be postponed until 2021. At least it's better than an outright cancellation.

Is next year really safe? No one can answer. I think moving to 2032 without bidding again would be the best choice. Just cancel all the qualified athletes. Japan shouldn't be the only one to suffer from the postponement that will cost a trillion yen. Athletes should miss the opportunity to compete too. IOC should miss the income from 2032 bidding process too.

I can understrand your disappointment but next year will be much safer than this year. One the folks who survive this would have built herd immunity and we should also have vaccination ready by that time. That should make it much safer especially if you want millions of tourists coming in for the olympics.

Glad to know that Frozen 2 didn't beat Weathering for You. There is some justice in the world, after all.

It's also nice to see Howling Village cross the 1 billion yen mark. I hope Fukushima 50 can do the same! Too bad about AI Amok.

So I guess Parasite is overrated everywhere in the world...

I think AI Amok reached ¥1 billion. I don't have any data or source backing that up, but it was getting close so Warner Bros. probably kept it playing long enough to get there. We'll know sometime in June when the half-year figures come in.

Fukushima 50 may get there, but it'll be a crawl of course.

Regarding the Olympics, it does seem like it'll get cancelled with countries beginning to pull out. Health and safety first, obviously, but very disappointing for the Japan. Japan is still handling the Coronavirus very well though, only surpassing 1,000 cases two days ago, and incredibly just 136 cases in Tokyo (population 38 million!) still. The Japanese are proving why they're the masters of social distancing. Testing is approaching 20,000 daily now too.

Toho Cinemas, the second largest chain (and busiest), and a few other chains are temporarily closing theaters in the Kanto (Tokyo) region beginning this weekend. Tokyo's governor expressed concern over COVID-19 this week after Tokyo reported its biggest single day rise in cases (47) and asked residents to stay home this weekend.

What also caused concern, although it should have been apparent before just two days out..., was how strong the pre-sales for Fate/stay night: Heaven's Feel III - Spring Song were. It was selling out many showings days in advance--unsurprisingly given the big debuts of the previous films-- so it got a very abrupt delay yesterday and will be released on April 25th, just before the Golden Week holiday period, instead of this weekend.

Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures account for the majority of box-office revenue in the country, so this will undoubtedly have a big impact on the box-office for awhile. If the box-office sees the expected 70% decline or so as a result of theaters in and around Tokyo closing, I probably won't post the estimated dailies after this week. I'll keep track of everything and determine if it's worth it.

Will you post last weekend's Top Ten anyway?

Unfortunately, no weekend figures were released this past weekend. Fortunately, the Top 10 films were released, ranked by admissions, which I feel will be the only thing we get for a couple weeks at least. The box-office is down 55-60% with theaters closed in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures now. I'll post the Weekend Top 10 later tonight/tomorrow morning.

Weekend Ranking (Admissions): 03/28-29

01 (02) Not Quite Dead (Shochiku) Week 2
02 (01) Birds of Prey (Warner Bros.) Week 2
03 (05) Mask Ward (Warner Bros.) Week 4
04 (04) Parasite (Bitter's End) Week 12
05 (03) Fukushima 50 (Shochiku) Week 4
06 (06) Yayoi, March: 30 Years That I Loved You (Toho) Week 2
07 (10) Howling Village (Toei) Week 8
08 (---) Psycho Pass 3 - First Inspector (Toho Video Division) NEW
09 (09) Stolen Identity 2 (Toho) Week 6
10 (08) Midsommar (Phantom Film) Week 6

Here's last weekend's Top 10, ranked by admissions. No weekend figures were released. I don't know if weekend figures will remain unreported while theaters in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures are closed, or if this weekend was just a one-time instance since it was the first weekend with so many theaters closed. As a result of these theaters closed, the box-office is reportedly down 55-60%.

However, numbers are still being recorded despite no weekend figures being released, as some select cumulative totals were reported, so here they are below:

Reported Cumulative Totals (As of 03/29):
¥1,316,616,900 ($12.1 million) / 1,015,160 admissions - Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku (Toho) 52 Days in Release
¥1,127,550,300 ($10.5 million) / 867,294 admissions - Stolen Identity 2 (Toho) 38 Days in Release
¥728,000,000 ($6.7 million) / 558,000 admissions - Fukushima 50 (Shochiku) 24 Days in Release
¥665,840,600 ($6.1 million) / 527,436 admissions - Mask Ward (Warner Bros.) 24 Days in Release
¥389,116,100 ($3.6 million) / 264,986 admissions - Birds of Prey (Warner Bros.) 10 Days in Release
¥350,000,000 ($3.3 million) / 248,000 admissions - Not Quite Dead (Shochiku) 10 Days in Release

Again, this might just be a one-time thing, but I do expect the next couple weeks to probably be like this. Still, I'll update what's available.

Thanks for the updates Corpse

No problem.

I also keep up with weekly manga and video game sales in the country. Not to the extent of the box-office or anything, but regularly enough to post weekly/cumulative sales. Their sales, from what I can tell, have remained largely unaffected and are still reported as usual.

Would this be something anyone here would like to see since the box-office updates are likely to be limited in available data for awhile? I'll get a message ready-to-post sometime today if someone says they're interested. And a lot (majority) of Japanese films are based on manga, and on a much smaller scale video games, too, so it's not totally unrelated to the box-office.

Yes Corpse always happy to see those numbers. Best to post those at this point. I thought with that's closing and people being isolated at home the Manga sales might have gone up, I'm guessing there are also digital versions of manga in Japan

Okay, I'll begin with the Manga since, while a little repetitive with a dozen or so series frequenting the top of the charts (one in particular at the moment), it offers a bit more variety in its entries, numbers and reporting. Nintendo has been completely dominating the Video Game sales charts for the past two/three years (they've had a 80%+ share of the market in recent years), which if fine and is keeping the industry strong, but you're going to see very similar weekly rankings when I begin to post them.

Also, similar to the box-office year in Japan beginning in December, the Manga industry and others also begin their years this way too. So when I post The Biggest Debuts of 2020, for instance, remember that some December 2019 releases will likely be present. Same goes for the Video Games when the time comes.

And finally, depending on the publisher, some Manga (and Video Games) release on the tailend of a sales week (literally the last day or two). I'll mark those debuts with an asterisk (*) to indicate that entry only had 1 or 2 days on shelves in its first week. So naturally some of those will have lower first week sales, but their second week sales are higher as a result. Week 3 onward behaves normally.