catlover

Yeah, but the reported OW number will look smaller than it is with Friday opening.

Kinda like Miracle in Cell No.7 then? I laughed a lot and cried a lot watching that movie. Sounds good to me.

Wow Miss Granny is still doing great. Is the movie any good? It's released here today, and I'm kinda interested.

No, it's unusual. Most movies are released on Saturday, so all opening numbers we've seen are 2-day numbers. It used to be all movies, but lately some Hollywood movies open on Friday.

I forgot it opens on Friday! The OW in official reports from Japan will only include Sat & Sun, so it's gonna be deflated because of that Friday opening. Although reports from screendaily etc. sometimes include Friday gross.

Omni maybe a pessimist, or just being realistic, but definitely not a hater. In fact, I agree with his OW prediction. Heck I even think Frozen will open lower than Doraemon. Not because I'm pessimistic, but because that's reasonable. Just like it's reasonable to expect great legs from Frozen, based on the market and its performance in other countries. It's true though, Frozen destroys reasons, mainly with WOM after people see the movie. That's why I think reasons still apply on its OW. But that's just me.

Yes, especially for movies with 2 versions: subtitled & dubbed. They need extra screens for the dubbed version. But exchange rates fluctuate more than Japan's population, they can increase or decrease at various rates. That's why DamienRoc said it's better to use yen, instead of dollars when comparing movies in Japan. There are no inflation and changes in ticket prices for years. So 5b yen for a 2D movie 10 years ago is the same as 5b yen for a 2D movie now. But in dollars, those 2 movies could be very different.

I agree, 5-6m would be great. With extraordinary legs, I think that OW would be enough for 70m+ total. But it's Frozen we're talking about here. Anything could happen.

Isn't $10m a little bit too high? Frozen is WDAS, not Pixar. They are different. FN was released after MI broke out, and Hollywood movies were more popular back then. MU and TS3 are sequel/prequel. I don't think they're comparable. Besides, $10m OW is very rare lately. Even The Wind Rises couldn't manage to do it. And it was heavily promoted as the last movie from Miyazaki.

On wiki, the box office numbers are usually worldwide. But I doubt Doraemon made $80m WW, so yeah, if you have sources other than wiki for box office, use those other sources.

This. It applies even more on films with a fixed audience, like Doraemon. Where did you get $86m? The highest grossing (and most attended) Doraemon film was last year's with $43.2m. Also, Frozen won't do Miyazaki numbers (but I can see The Wind Rises as the ceiling). Even if it does, it will do it not because of zero competition. Due to how leggy Japanese market is, Movies that make Miyazaki numbers will do it in a span of several months. During that time, there will be competitions no matter what.

Why? They can co-exist. Look at Arrietty & Toy Story 3 in 2010. Also Monsters University and The Wind Rises. Besides, Frozen is the bigger movie here, or at least it has a potential to be bigger. While Doraemon is stable and predictable and will probably make $40m max. In fact, I think it will be the other way around. Frozen might hurt Doraemon. Plus, it looks like this year's movie won't open bigger than last year's.

Very creative, using the winter Olympics for the promo. The Olympics is a huge event in Japan, so that's very smart. They were saying that the movie was about the relationship between two sisters. And then they were talking about how the movie was a big hit, making the 3rd biggest 6th weekend ever after Titanic and Avatar, nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Animated Film and Best Original Song, also about how Let It Go was getting attention worldwide, and how the soundtrack was #1 on Billboard and sold 500k (should be updated, it's 1.2m now ). Finally, they introduced the Japanese version of Let It Go. I remember watching an older video of Japanese TV show where they were discussing the huge success of Frozen with 900m WW box office, Oscar nominations, and how the soundtrack beat Beyonce for #1 on Billboard. Even if you don't understand Japanese you could see that they were really impressed with Frozen's achievements. I'll post it when I found the video.

Dodged a bullet there . Your hats are safe now. But yeah it was close, and still much bigger then you said it would be.

That's great! I wish they would re-release Frozen too in Indonesia. I wanna see it again in the theater. I mean Gravity was re-released today in 2D and IMAX 3D after the Oscars. Why not Frozen?

That was fast. "Winner of Two Oscars" has already been included in the promo. Interesting that it also says "The 3rd biggest after Titanic and Avatar!", and then adds "6th weekend at the US box office" in small fonts lol.

That's exactly like an episode of The Following. Except it's a lot worse, and real.

But there is a reason for the 2nd one to be bigger than the first: different release date. I was really surprised before because someone said DoS would open lower than AUJ. Apparently, that's not the case. Although I'm still confused why the Japanese don't like The Hobbit movies as much as LOTR, that opening for DoS is less surprising now.

Wow I thought it would work better with March release. Apparently not. Usually I understand Japanese market, but this I don't get. They LOVE Lord of the Rings, but not The Hobbit? I mean yeah, it won't do LOTR numbers but before AUJ opened I thought 30-40m was reasonable.

That takes a lot of effort. It's only 2 weeks away. I'm pretty sure people there would just wait for the theatrical release. Even if some people in Japan do that, it will be a very small number of downloads. Digital download for movies is not big there to begin with. So the impact on its box office would be close to zero. I mean if free illegal downloads don't have much impact on Japan, why would a digital release in other country?

Doraemon movies always open on the same week and have pretty much the same box office numbers every year. Although somehow, after the 2011 movie was hit pretty bad by the tsunami, the franchise bounced back with the 2012 movie, and has been setting new records for Doraemon franchise every year after that. But I'm still not worried. Japan is a leggy market. Movies are not relying heavily on OW. Competition doesn't matter that much. For example, The Secret World of Arrietty, a Ghibli animation, was released only 1 week after TS3. Both made more than 9b yen, with TS3 over 10b. Also, Lego Movie won't make much in Japan, not really a competition.

Murgatroyd said "today's exchange rate".

Good point.

THIS. I think it's easier (bigger possibility) to break Avatar WW record than Spirited Away's record in Japan. Btw, I have mixed feelings about Frozen beating TS3 WW. TS3 is one of my all time favorite movies (and it's actually close to #1 on my all time favorite list). At the same time I LOVE Frozen so much and it deserves every penny it's getting, but I still think TS3 deserves more than what it got.

Yeah, I know that. But who knows, maybe there will be a movie that resonates to the Japanese audience so much that it will be as big as Spirited Away. Also, maybe Japan's demographics and economic situation will change in the future. You never know. There's always a possibility of that, no matter how small. So I can't really say it will never happen, because I don't know about the future. And that's why I said what I said.