KP1025

Depending on how hard Disney wants to push Lion King, the biggest issue for TS4 is screen loss. Aladdin is having its biggest drop yet because Disney likes to have the widest release possible for movies they anticipate to be big in Japan. That usually comes at the expense of their own holdovers, from which they take the screens. This happened to Moana when Beauty and the Beast opened, which in return then suffered big screen loss when Pirates 5 opened,.

It seems there is very heavy local competition coming up (expected given summer was traditionally reserved for them), but the absence of a major Hollywood film until Hobbs & Shaw should help.

About $62 million.

Very unlikely. That would require a gross of nearly ¥13.7 billion using current exchange rates. Even passing Toy Story 3's ¥10.8 billion is not locked at the moment.

I think the market will naturally expand to accommodate phenomenon-level hits. It's the smaller films in between that will suffer, as people save up for the big event.

According to Wikipedia, yes. Strangely, BOM has not updated the OS total of Spirited Away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_anime_films https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=spiritedaway.htm Very rough calculation of Spirited Away's gross (the USD amount for Japan is slightly too high according to Corpse).

Corpse: Weekend Forecast (07/13-14)01 (---) ¥1,000,000,000 ($9.2 million), 0, ¥1,300,000,000 ($12.0 million), Toy Story 4 (Disney) NEW02 (---) ¥525,000,000 ($4.8 million), 0, ¥615,000,000 ($5.7 million), Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back - Evolution (Toho) NEW 03 (01) ¥489,000,000 ($4.5 million), -30%, ¥9,525,000,000 ($87.8 million), Aladdin (Disney) WK6 04 (02) ¥228,000,000 ($2.1 million), -42%, ¥2,350,000,000 ($21.7 million), Spider-Man: Far From Home (Sony) WK3 05 (03) ¥130,000,000 ($1.2 million), -32%, ¥600,000,000 ($5.6 million), The Diner (Warner Bros.) WK2 06 (04) ¥x82,000,000 ($755,000), -40%, ¥1,440,000,000 ($13.3 million), The Fable (Toho) WK4 07 (05) ¥x65,000,000 ($600,000), -20%, ¥900,000,000 ($8.5 million), Uta no Prince-sama The Movie: Maji LOVE Kingdom (Shochiku) WK6 08 (06) ¥x52,000,000 ($480,000), -31%, ¥325,000,000 ($3.0 million), Anpanman: Sparkle! Princess Van./Land of Ice Cream (Tokyo Theaters) WK3 09 (08) ¥x36,000,000 ($330,000), -25%, ¥300,000,000 ($2.8 million), The Journalist (Star Sands) WK3 10 (12) ¥x30,000,000 ($275,000), -15%, ¥425,000,000 ($4.0 million), Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (Aniplex) WK5>Toy Story 4 debuts this weekend, and it's looking to make Japanese box-office history by becoming the first ever imported animated film to open above ¥1 billion. I think it has a better than 50% chance of doing it based on its pre-sales and early morning Saturday ticket sales, but I'm going to leave its weekend forecast right at said milestone just in case it comes in barely shy. And to claim the record for biggest opening weekend for an imported animated film (held by its predecessor, Toy Story 3), it needs to beat ¥977 million. And one record that is very likely to be broken is breaking the opening weekend admissions record for an imported animated film (held by Finding Nemo). But, if it's likely to break that record, why won't it open above Toy Story 3 and break ¥1 billion? Because Toy Story 3 opened at the peak of the 3D craze which gave it a huge average ticket sale boost that isn't as prevalent in today's market. >Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back - Evolution looks to debut in second place, and based on pre-sales, might just outopen last year's film, Pokemon: Everyone's Story. I was expecting a slight drop from last year's film, so any debut of a similar figure, or higher obviously, is certainly encouraging for the franchise after reaching a low-point a few years back. This film is the first CGI Pokemon film in the series, and is a remake of the original Pokemon film from 1998. >Aladdin may slip to third place and have a normal hold for the first time in its run, but it's still doing very, very impressive numbers (some of its day-to-day drops were in the single-digits this week). It'll become the highest-grossing film of 2019 over the weekend and likely be less than ¥500 million away from reaching the ¥10 billion uber-milestone.

I was also thinking the Lion King would beat Jungle Book easily. That said, I don't think there's much nostalgia for the original animated film in China (I'm not sure it was ever released).

2003 actually had 4 films pass ¥10 billion, but you're right that it's never happened in such a short time frame before.

F9 is also missing two main cast members from the series (The Rock and Statham), so reception and hype probably won't be as high as F7 or F8. However, F10 has a chance to be the biggest in the franchise if it is marketed as the finale.

Hobbs and Shaw might be the next big underperformer relative to expectations in China.

Godzilla 2 also had very lofty expectations here. I think predictions were $250+ million.

Lion King starts at 8.8 on Maoyan.

The Lion King starts at 8.9 on Taopiaopiao. Maoyan shouldn't be too far off from this number.

For comparison, Aladdin currently has 7.8 on Douban. I'm guessing a Maoyan score around 9.0 or higher is attainable for Lion King. China generally enjoys films with stunning VFX, so hopefully that is the case here.

Ever since TS3, every Pixar sequel has done worse than their predecessor (Finding Dory dropped a harsh 38% from Finding Nemo in yen). The yen is also much weaker now than 2010, and TS3 would lose almost $30 million from Japan if adjusted to current exchange rate. That said, I think TS4 can still gross ¥7-8 billion at least (around $65-75 million).

Still very early, but the hype it has generated in China so far is on par with Infinity War and Endgame.

$11.9M?

Corpse: Weekend Actuals (07/06-07)01 (01) ¥698,878,600 ($6.5 million), -20%, ¥8,560,430,500 ($79.0 million), Aladdin (Disney) WK5 02 (02) ¥393,607,900 ($3.6 million), -44%, ¥1,867,980,830 ($17.3 million), Spider-Man: Far From Home (Sony) WK203 (---) ¥191,000,000 ($1.8 million), 0, ¥259,921,700 ($2.4 million), The Diner (Warner Bros.) NEW 04 (03) ¥137,613,300 ($1.2 million), -39%, ¥1,258,815,100 ($11.5 million), The Fable (Toho) WK3 05 (06) ¥x81,522,900 ($751,000), +06%, ¥750,646,400 ($7.1 million), Uta no Prince-sama The Movie: Maji LOVE Kingdom (Shochiku) WK5 06 (04) ¥x76,141,000 ($702,000), -39%, ¥250,888,100 ($2.3 million), Anpanman: Sparkle! Princess Van./Land of Ice Cream (Tokyo Theaters) WK207 (---) ¥x70,000,000 ($645,000), 0, ¥104,487,500 ($960,000), The Documentary of Nogizaka46 - II (Toho Video Division) NEW 08 (10) ¥x48,139,900 ($444,000), -04%, ¥195,459,890 ($1.8 million), The Journalist (Star Sands) WK209 (---) ¥x45,000,000 ($415,000), 0, ¥x80,000,000 ($740,000), Free! Road to the World - The Dream (Shochiku) NEW 10 (05) ¥x39,632,200 ($365,000), -49%, ¥2,708,601,100 ($25.1 million), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Toho) WK6 11 (07) ¥x36,168,600 ($333,000), -46%, ¥940,141,300 ($8.8 million), Men in Black International (Sony) WK4 12 (11) ¥x35,279,500 ($325,000), -26%, ¥373,520,090 ($3.5 million), Rascal Does Not Dream of a Dreaming Girl (Aniplex) WK4 13 (13) ¥x32,269,000 ($297,000), -23%, ¥816,418,700 ($7.5 million), Promare (Toho) WK7>Aladdin repeats atop the box-office for a fifth-consecutive weekend, selling a further 468,000 admissions over the weekend to reach 5,986,400. The film continues to perform incredibly well, though it is showing signs of slowing down a bit now. It will become the #1 film of 2019 next weekend and remains on track to finish around ¥11/12 billion ($110 million), where both Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast finished. >Spider-Man: Far From Home experiences a near identical (44% vs. 43%) second weekend drop that its predecessor had, which is fine. It's likely going to exceed ¥3 billion ($30 million), and as long as it can enjoy a sub-40% third weekend drop next week, it's probably going to reach ¥3.5 billion ($35 million). It'll probably become the highest-grossing Spider-Man film since the original trilogy, and depending on where it does finish, it'll either be the second or third highest grossing film in the MCU (only behind Endgame, and then possibly Infinity War). >The Diner debuted decently for Warner Bros., selling 132,000 admissions over the weekend frame across 317 screens, and sold 182,410 admissions since opening on Friday. Not bad, and even with mediocre legs, it should manage to just reach the ¥1 billion ($10 million) milestone. >And finally, a quick mention for Promare, which is still hanging around just outside the Top 10. This near-limited release (121 screens) anime film only opened to about ¥65 million, which was pretty disappointing, but due to a strong audience reception, it developed excellent legs (its seventh weekend is down 50% versus its opening!) and will probably reach the ¥1 billion ($10 million) milestone. And it's never expanded. Very notable performance here, even if Toho does decide to pull it before reaching that mark.

Yeah, I think $1 billion is looking likely for TS4. With current exchange rate, TS3's gross in Japan would be just under $100 million. Accounting for a further 20-30% decline (as Pixar sequels have done recently) would give TS4 around $70-80 million in Japan.

If Mulan really hits all the right notes in China, it should perform like a top tier local film. I wouldn't be surprised at $500+ million, but that's assuming stellar reception/WOM. There's a lot that can go wrong too since this is a culturally sensitive film.

TS4 actually increased quite a bit from TS3 in all those markets (except Hong Kong, which hasn't opened yet), so that's not the best comparison. Not to mention Pixar has generally much better performances in Japan compared to the rest of Asia. I'm expecting a drop for TS4 in Japan based on how huge TS3 was, but it should still be a big success.

TS4 should easily win next weekend since Pixar films always have a wider audience than Pokemon. The Pokemon films target mostly young kids in Japan and usually only gross in the ¥3 billion range total. TS3 grossed ¥10.8 billion yen total, and I doubt TS4 will be that much lower (maybe 20-30% drop).

Definitely. Asian audiences resonate strongly with movies that deal with family themes, especially elder/parent-child relationships.

I think he was comparing to Amazing Spider-Man, which had a similar 6-day opening first week of July. That film ended up grossing 1.91x its 6-day opening.