Correct.

Yes, very likely. And the How to Train Your Dragon series is an unfortunate one in the market.

The first film had heavy competition from Pixar and Ghibli in Summer 2010, and with DreamWorks Animation films beginning to outright bomb terribly around that time, it was lost in the shuffle. It received excellent reviews, though, and its home video sales were quite impressive, especially compared to its dismal box-office results.

The second film didn't receive a theatrical release because DreamWorks Animation had already been abandoned by Fox/Paramount when it was released. There was a petition for the film to be released in Japan by fans, but it didn't result in anything. And Dean DeBlois (director) replied to me on twitter when I messaged him about the issue, saying he was really trying to get it financed and to find a distributor (his passion for HTTYD is incredible), but later posted on his twitter following others' similar questions that it wasn't possible.

Toho-Towa is a great distributor, a subsidiary of Toho, and I'm sure they're largely responsible for Illumination becoming a big success in Japan thanks to being better equipped to market to a Japanese audience, and they have key cooperation with Toho (Toho operates roughly a third of Japan's cinemas). I'm confident that they'll continue to deliver with DreamWorks Animation titles in the future as well.

I hope HTTYD3 finds its audience finally in Japan.

Female power coming in and Coco gets above TBB in dailies. I am really liking these updates, get to know the market in more detail. Thanks Corpse

Thursday(admissions)

1.TBB
2.Doraemon
3.Coco

I'd go with Doraemon being #1 in admissions, if just barely. The Boss Baby sold more tickets at the usual locations (75% of the market), but it was just a couple thousand more and Doraemon excels in the unaccounted for theaters in rural areas since it skews really young.

Either way, it was yet again another super close day between all three films like it's been every day since last Wednesday. I'll have Thursday estimates up soon.

Unsurprisingly, all the openers this weekend look to disappoint/bomb. Films that are released on the tail-end of holiday periods are typically expected to underperform. The Post probably could be doing a bit more if it had earned any real award recognition. Honey opens tomorrow, adding a fifth wide opener for the weekend, but it's unlikely to make much of an impact either.

I'll post the Weekend Forecast later tonight. The last weekend of March/first weekend of April tends to be very strong for the holdovers, so look for minuscule declines and possible increases for them (especially with the 1st [discount day] landing on a Sunday this weekend) while the openers disappoint. I'm expecting the Top 5 to consist of the holdovers, while the Bottom 5 could potentially be all openers.

Saturday admissions(usual locations)

1.Coco-78,408
2.TBB-77,694
3.Doraemon-65,810

Incredibly close for Top 3 again. How big of a drop well these the see next weekend after the holidays?

Sunday:

Coco-134,401.
TBB-123,168.
Doraemon-111,195.

I'll have Weekend Estimates up soon.

Very good weekend, maybe slightly weaker than what I forecast above. And while the race for #1 was close again, it was less so this weekend, meaning Coco does repeat for a third weekend and probably claimed its first weekend victory in admissions.

Given those updates from Pepe it does look like Coco won the weekend overall and quite comfortably.

Nothing too bad, look for drops in the 30-40% range. The weekdays is where you'll see the huge drops, probably declines of 70-80%. Schools are still out the first few days of April, though, so they'll be benefiting from Spring Break for a little bit longer.

Cool. Thanks as always for the info

I wonder how much would TBB have made without the Spring holidays boost.

Hey Corpse,

On IMDB I just found that the Spider-Man movie spinoff Venom will be released in December of this year in Japan, Since it is a spin-off of Spider-Man who is the most popular Western Superhero in Japan and Since Venom had an appearance in Spider-Man 3 from 2007 which was a success in Japan Can Venom since it is Spider-Man related do good numbers like between 1 to 2 billion yen in Japan?

Monday:

1.TBB-72,979.
2.Doraemon-58,816.
3.Coco-56,410.

I wouldn't expect much from it. Maybe ¥1 billion if Sony doesn't mess the marketing up.

The Weekend Actuals that are available right now are pretty close to my estimates (although I did overestimate Coco's cumulative total), so I'm going to go ahead and post Monday's Estimates and adjust them afterwards where needed. Weekend Actuals will, of course, be posted later this evening when they're all available.

The box-office is still benefiting from Spring Break, and should for a few more days, so I'll keep posting daily estimates until things return back to normal (probably on Thursday or Friday).

Thanks.