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Japanese Box Office, August 9–10: Ponyo's Month at #1
posted on by Egan Loo
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (pictured at right), Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film in nearly four years, is about to complete its first month at #1 at the Japanese box office after the August 9–10 weekend. Despite the recent start of Beijing 2008 Olympics, Ponyo's latest weekend box office take was still 760 million yen (about US$7 million), or 96.8% of the previous weekend's take. A total of 6 million people have now seen the film, and it has garnered over 7.2 billion yen (US$66 million) as of Monday. Even Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which is poised to take the #2 spot in the all-time international box office chart from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, settled for #2 in its Japanese opening this past weekend.
Kunihiko Yuyama's Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl: Giratina to Sora no Hanataba Shaymin, the Pokémon franchise's 11th feature film, dropped from #2 to #3, but it still has 3.33 billion yen (US$30 million) after four weekends. As of August 12, the 11 films in the Pokémon franchise have earned over 50 billion yen (US$460 million) at the Japanese box office. The first Pokémon movie (1998) eventually earned 7.24 billion yen (US$66 million), but the annual films since then have earned about 400 mlllion yen (US$3.7 million) each. 43,350,000 attendees spent 5.02 billion yen (US$47 million) to see last year's Pokémon film. The twin movie billing of Kamen Rider Kiva and Engine Sentai Go-onger opened below this year's Pokémon film at #4.
Boys Over Flowers: Final (Hana Yori Dango Final), Yasuharu Ishii's live-action film finale based on Yōko Kamio's Boys Over Flowers (Hana Yori Dango) romantic comedy manga, stayed at #5 in its seventh weekend. Hajime Kamegaki's Naruto Shippūden: Kizuna, the fifth feature movie in the Naruto ninja franchise, dropped from #3 to #7 in its second weekend. The Sky Crawlers, Mamoru Oshii's first fully animated work since 2004's Ghost in the Shell sequel Innocence, fell from #7 to #9 in its second weekend. GeGeGe no Kitarō: Sennen Noroi Uta (GeGeGe no Kitarō : The Thousand-Year-Curse Song), the live-action film sequel based on Shigeru Mizuki's supernatural manga, dropped from #10 off the top 10 chart in its fifth weekend.
Source: Kogyo Tsushinsha, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Variety Japan, Sports Nippon
Image © 2008 Nibariki, GNDHDDT
follow-up of Japanese Box Office, August 2–3: Ponyo's 3rd Week at #1
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