News
One Piece Film Z Earns Japan's #1 Opening Weekend of 2012 (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
Film journalist Hiroo Otaka reported on Monday that One Piece Film Z earned 1,372,050,000 yen (about US$16,339,700) this past weekend, and thus topped Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo for the highest opening weekend box office in Japan this year. The latest One Piece film sold 1.14 million tickets on 300 screens.
One Piece Film Z's opening weekend box office was 132% higher than the last One Piece film, One Piece Film Strong World. That earlier film earned 1.038 billion yen (US$11.7 million) in its first weekend, December 12 to 13, 2009.
One Piece Film Z is also the fastest domestic film to sell 1 millon tickets this year. It took the manga-based live-action film Brave Hearts Umizaru three days and Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo four days to accomplish that feat. One Piece Film Z already sold 600,000 tickets for 750 million yen (US$9 million) on its first day.
Otaka reports that the film distributor Toei is projecting a final box office of over 5 billion yen (US$60 million) or even 6 billion yen (US$70 million).
The film features "Z" (Zetto), the Straw Hat pirate crew's "strongest enemy yet" who was designed by original One Piece manga creator Eiichiro Oda. Oda served as the executive producer of this film, as he did for the 10th feature film, 2009's One Piece Film Strong World.
Attendees of the movie are getting 2 million copies of an 84-page “Volume 1000” of One Piece, which contains designs and an exclusive One Piece Treasure World card.
[Via Yaraon!]
Image © Eiichiro Oda/Shueisha © Eiichiro Oda/2012 One Piece Production Committee
Update: One Piece Film Z falls short of the highest opening weekend of any domestic film (unadjusted for inflation). Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle sold over 1.1 million tickets for 1.483 billion yen (US$14.3 million in 2004 rates) on 448 screens.
Update 2: Kadokawa Shoten's Movie Walker website lists more specific numbers for One Piece Film Z: 1,140,081 tickets sold for 1,372,054,050 yen (US$16,378,758).
The manga-based live-action film Yōkai Ningen Bem debuted at #2 with 175,438 tickets sold for 206,325,850 yen (US$2,463,881) on 331 screens. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opened at #5 with 146,315 tickets sold for 220,517,100 yen (US$2,633,349) during the weekend. It had a three-day total of 199,122 tickets for 291,659,500 yen (US$3,482,910). Frankenweenie debuted at #8 with 80,953 tickets sold for 111,818,000 yen (US$1,335,297).
Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu and the latest Kamen Rider film were #3 and #4, while Evangelion: 3.0 was #7 and Inazuma Eleven Go vs. Danbōru Senki W was #9.
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history