News

3rd Yo-kai Watch Film Tops Japanese Box Office, Beats Rogue One

Update: Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double no Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan! sold 545,211 tickets for 608,033,100 yen (about US$5.189 million) on 415 screens from Saturday to Sunday. That is 57.5% of the opening weekend box office for the last Yo-kai Watch film, which eventually earned 5.53 billion yen (about US$47 million).

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sold 413,600 tickets for 653 million yen (about US$5.573 million) on 368 screens from Saturday to Sunday. That is 52.5% of the opening weekend box office for the last Star Wars film. The new film actually opened on Friday, and so it earned 920 million yen (about US$7.852 million) across its first three days. The Eiga.com website projects that it will earn over 4 billion yen (about US$34 million).

Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double no Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan! (Yo-kai Watch The Movie: The Flying Whale and the Grand Adventure of the Double Worlds, Meow!), the third Yo-kai Watch film, topped the Japanese box office in its opening December 17-18 weekend. The film ranked higher in tickets sold over the two days than Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which debuted in Japan at #2. Rogue One opened on Friday, while the Yo-kai Watch film opened on Saturday.

However, Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double no Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan! did not top Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in box office earnings for the Saturday-Sunday time period.

Last year, Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Enma Daioh to Itsutsu no Monogatari da Nyan!, the second Yo-kai Watch film, also debuted on the same weekend as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with Star Wars similarly opening on Friday against Yo-kai Watch's Saturday opening. While the Yo-kai Watch film topped Star Wars: The Force Awakens in tickets sold on the opening weekend, Star Wars: The Force Awakens topped it in actual money earned at the Japanese box office, both including and excluding the Friday opening day.

Both movies retained their status until the third weekend, when Star Wars topped Yo-kai Watch in both ticket sales and box office gross.

Makoto Shinkai's your name. (Kimi no Na wa.) anime film dropped from #5 to #6 in its 17th weekend. The film has earned 20,897,904,500 yen (about US$178 million) and sold 16,079,937 tickets in Japan as of Sunday, 115 days after it opened in Japan.

Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Rider, the New Kamen Rider film in Toei's Movie Taisen (Movie War) series of crossover films, dropped from #3 to #7 in its second weekend.

The Monster Strike The Movie anime film dropped from #1 to #8 in its second weekend. The film earned 439,612,800 yen (about US$3.79 million) and sold 390,416 tickets in its opening weekend. (Variety later reported that while the film was #1 in terms of ticket sales, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them earned the equivalent of US$4.9 million to actually top the Japanese box office in terms of earnings last weekend.)

The Suki ni Naru Sono Shunkan o: Kokuhaku Jikkō Iinkai (I wait for the moment you love me. Confession Executive Committee), the second anime film inspired by the HoneyWorks musical group's Kokuhaku Jikkō Iinkai ~Renai Series~ (Confession Executive Committee ~Love Series~) Vocaloid songs, debuted at #9.

Sunao Katabuchi's (Mai Mai Miracle, Black Lagoon) In This Corner of the World anime film dropped from #7 to #10 in its sixth weekend.

The Kantai Collection: KanColle anime film, the live-action Museum film, and live-action Oboreru Knife film all fell off the chart this week in their fourth, sixth, and seventh weekends, respectively. Oboreru Knife briefly returned to the top 10 last week in its sixth weekend after dropping off the chart in its fifth weekend.

Source: Kōgyō Tsūshin