By the way, Corpse, it was leaked today that DS will return to theaters with the fortress arc. Probably a trilogy.

Also, schools are out in Japan for all of August, right?

Not sure about the video game. But the way the video game market works in Japan, if it doesn't have a big debut, it won't sell a lot. People rush out to buy games in Japan, or at least they did when I paid attention to the market 10 years ago.

I'm a little disappointed in Elemental's performance this weekend. But I guess because schools are out in Japan, it does better in the weekdays.

The volume did ok for what it is...a new release of a kanzenban/decades old oneshot. And if people can't be bothered to show for the film I assume the console game will tank completely.

Oof. Sand Land actually declined on Saturday... Finished a more clear 5th place for the day.

The holdovers should perform better on Sunday vs Saturday than Sand Land will, so Sand Land might be looking at a very disappointing 5th place debut this weekend. Sub-¥200 million opening weekend very likely, which is going to make reaching ¥1 billion tough.

I don't know how it's doing outside the box office, but this feels like an end to a franchise before it really even began to me. I appreciate trying to start a new franchise, but at the same time this feels like a waste of a lot of money on this project too.

As for the holdovers, Kingdom III is going to reign atop the box office for a fourth straight weekend. How Do You Live? had the best hold vs last week and may rise up to second place in its sixth weekend. Good sign for it, though the numbers have dropped too far for good holds to matter too much, I feel. MI7 likely coming in third. Elemental probably fourth, but if it has a bigger Sun. bump, it could take third. Sand Land in fifth as mentioned. And then Crayon Shin-chan in sixth (but a big Sun. bump could allow it to challenge Sand Land for fifth...).

FranSpeech is estimating, as no official daily estimates are released in Japan unless a studio releases figures. Keep that in mind with the many Twitter users to post Japan numbers. They're usually close, of course, but they're not official.

I'd estimate Sand Land to be higher though. It's avg. ticket price should be a little on the high end (or at least upper-mid) given the premium showings. And I assume most of its audience consisted of Toriyama fans, which would be adults. Nothing really high, but high enough that being so close in admissions to the others should give it at least third place in revenue I'd think. I'd estimate second place myself. Having Elemental in second is unlikely since it has the second lowest avg. ticket price of the big films in release right now, so being close in admissions probably puts it in 3rd-5th.

The top 5 are super close overall though. Only 4k admissions separated them on mimorin, so nationally, they could be <10k admissions of each other.

FranSpeech is reporting 'How Do You Live' is still in 4th place on the 18th of August.

1. Kingdom3
2. Elemental
3. MI7
4. How Do You Live
5. Sand Land
6. CrayonShinchan
7. Barbie
8. Transformers
9. Super Mario

Sand Land didn't make a huge Friday gross

Maybe? Although doing this now on the backend of summer will probably have a minimal effect.

I don't want ¥10 billion to be seen as a mark of disappointment here. If it misses it, yeah, I'd say this film disappointed. But if it gets there, it'll be a success. Not a huge one, not as high as some expectations were, but it's still a success. (Although I don't know how much of a profit that gives it, if any, since it's believed to be the most expensive film ever, which will be a budget over ¥5 billion.)

But ¥10 billion is still that gold standard in the market. It's a little easier to reach now as avg. ticket prices gradually increases (largely thanks to the popularity of premium showings), but it's still the big milestone to shoot for when possible.

You were right. It's really too close to say what film came out on top on Friday, my prediction is Kingdom III again, but for Sand Land to be in third on mimorin and in a 5-way race for #1 against holdovers that range from 3 weeks to 6 weeks old is embarrassing for it.

Not winning Friday, or maybe coming out just barely on top thanks to its premium showings, probably means it's not winning the weekend in its debut. Holdovers tend to see bigger gains over Sat/Sun.

I think they should start promoting it. Perhaps an official trailer would help? I doubt it would at this stage, but ...
They only now released some official images of scenes of the film.

https://twitter.com/oricon_anime_/statu ... 2570805377

I actually think Sand Land will fall behind at this point, this Friday. Its afternoon and evening sales might not pick up the slack.

It's pretty bad still. It should have been able to win Friday very easily, as it's up against holdovers that are 3-6 weeks old now, but it's currently barely above them.

I suspect it will still win Friday, openers advantage, but I don't like its chances for the whole weekend unless it starts to pull well ahead later today. And if it does win the weekend, it'll be a pretty rough opening it would seem.

JustLurking talked about how they've put a lot into this old one-shot as if they're launching a new franchise from it across various mediums, but I don't know... doesn't look good. Most things become a franchise or multi-media success organically. Most that try to get forced to become a franchise or a bigger franchise usually fail. Interest has to be there, and that interest has to grow from person to person. Can't just pump a bunch of stuff out and expect loads of people to jump on board from the start.

Sales for Sand Land just look hideous. Absolutely hideous. Curious how low it will be this weekend.

edit:

Hmm... the opening on mimorin isn't horrible. Actually comfortably in the lead. We will see.

It's going to need something extra to get it there, I believe. Whether that be another Miyazaki retirement announcement (although I have doubts this will be as effective as in the past), or an appealing giveaway, or something else... something is likely to be needed to get it to ¥10 billion. On its own, I predict it'll finish between ¥9-9.5 billion. Yes, close, but that extra ¥500m-1b won't be easy to get without some incentive.

About to post Thursday's estimates. A little lower than I was expecting, but still an above-average day and concludes Obon Festival 2023.

But will it get to 10 billion?

Pretty sure How Do You Live will pass 7 billion yen this weekend.

Came up with a more coherent way to compare how Elemental is holding up

date Elemental Kingdom 3 % of Kingdom 3 HDYL % of HDYL
August 4 38919 46491 83.71% 30707 126.74%
August 5 41884 79224 52.87% 49117 85.27%
August 6 53653 84430 63.55% 51253 104.68%
August 7 31289 36650 85.37% 25349 123.43%
August 8 29327 32514 90.20% 23562 124.47%
August 9 43841 44242 99.09% 34381 127.52%
August 10 32910 38287 85.96% 27889 118.00%
August 11 52555 75644 69.48% 53677 97.91%
August 12 45731 69098 66.18% 50389 90.76%
August 13 44866 63965 70.14% 45960 97.62%
August 14 48911 67477 72.49% 47384 103.22%
August 15 39036 47229 82.65% 35283 110.64%
August 16 56742 62944 90.15% 49687 114.20%

EDIT: This effect is probably because this Thursday is a not-Holiday but still Summer Vacation day. But I don't think any previous day was over 40% difference at this point. Maybe 30%

Elemental is making clear and rapid progress on the legs front and could very well be the #1 movie of Thursday, August 17th 2023 in Japan.

2pm tallies on mimorin
comparison between Elemental and Kingdom 3

August 17
19534: Elemental
13665: Kingdom 3
Elemental 43% higher at this point of the day.

August 16
36941: Elemental
30842: Kingdom 3
Elemental 20% higher at this point of the day.

August 15
25068: Elemental
23184: Kingdom 3
Elemental 8% higher at this point of the day.

August 14"
31465: Elemental
31015: Kingdom 3
Elemental 1% higher at this point of the day.

August 13:
28957: Kingdom 3
27430: Elemental
Elemental 5% lower at this point of the day.

August 12:
29055: Kingdom 3
27684: Elemental
Elemental 5% lower at this point of the day.

August 11
33467: Kingdom 3
32909: Elemental
Elemental 2% lower at this point of the day.

EDIT:

Going to do this for the rest of the days too.

August 10
20257: Elemental
15094: Kingdom 3
Elemental 34% higher at this point of the day.

August 9
27920: Elemental
20128: Kingdom 3
Elemental 39% higher at this point of the day

August 8
19105: Elemental
14439: Kingdom 3
Elemental 32% higher at this point of the day

August 7
19893: Elemental
16199: Kingdom 3
Elemental 23% higher at this point of the day

August 6
41370: Kingdom 3
33154: Elemental
Elemental 20% lower at this point of the day.

August 5
31495: Kingdom 3
23461: Elemental
Elemental 26% lower at this point of the day.

August 4
22802: Elemental
17046: Kingdom 3
Elemental 34% higher at this point of the day

Mimorin Friday seats

Sand Land looks positioned to be a big breakout... but I don't know if people are really showing up for it. We will see.

rank seats shows avg. seats

*1　302183　1082　279.3　2.7　160　312　51.3%　映画「ＳＡＮＤ ＬＡＮＤ」
*2　232715　*861　270.3　2.9　171　375　45.6%　Kingdom 3
*3　141464　*712　198.7　4.4　169　365　46.3%　Crayon Shin-chan
*4　135798　*818　166.0　5.7　172　385　44.7%　How Do You Live
*5　130782　*709　184.5　4.8　171　363　47.1%　Elemental
*6　116011　*652　177.9　5.3　171　383　44.6%　Mission Impossible
*7　*85480　*611　139.9　7.0　171　331　51.7%　Barbie
*8　*73310　*577　127.1　7.2　166　344　48.3%　Revolver Lily
*9　*67118　*509　131.9　7.0　169　346　48.8%　Transformers

Just going off the gross, yeah, flop. For a Western comedy, it's not bad/good. They rarely even make the top 10, so Barbie debuting in 7th is "okay", but of course the numbers suck.

It's done very well since summer vacation began last month and during Obon this week. Still in the Top 10. Huge advantage of having a local distributor = long runs to benefit from various holiday periods. If this had been Disney, they probably would have stopped supporting it before summer vacation began.

I'm probably going to update the 2023 Charts (as well as various other charts) today and post the Weekend Actuals in a two-for-one with this upcoming weekend's next week. Don't want the charts to get behind a week.

I know you have certain thresholds with names like hit, mega hit, etc., so how would you categorise Barbie's performance in Japan? To me it looks like a real flop.

Universal reported that Mario crossed $100M (¥13.74B) on Tuesday, with $100.1M. Mario overtakes Top Gun: Maverick as the No. 6 Hollywood film of all time in Japan, and is the No. 1 studio picture since the beginning of the pandemic.