Spiderman: No Way Home broke the first three days advance booking records of it's previous two film "Homecoming" &"Far From Home" by 339% &376% repectively.

https://twitter.com/the_river_jp/status ... 19875?s=20

Shinkai's new movie is announced!


Genre: Sci-fi mystery

A door of misfortune opens all over the archipelago. It is an adventure movie where the main character Suzume travels from a close door. A modern adventure story, and an action movie where she fights with an entity. It should be a fun movie, so please look forward to it in the fall of 2022! (Shinkai's tweet)


Fall 2022

I wonder if he's returning to more of his "non-mainstream" style before Your Name. Certainly seems a departure from Your Name./Weathering With You.

The Fall 2022 release is also interesting. I'm going to assume it'll be during Silver Week in September. Not a bad release date, but it'll have no holiday support through pretty much all of its run. That doesn't mean big numbers can't happen over a leggy run, but it's more difficult. This sort of indicates, at least to me, that Toho may not be as confident in it doing massive numbers, or that it will have little/no family appeal, otherwise I don't know why they wouldn't go for July or August. Every Miyazaki and Hosoda film, for example, opens in July.

Just speculating, of course.

I addressed this earlier in the week when someone posted it. It's great news, not dismissing that, but this is a very misleading headline. It's only referring to the Mubichike Card tickets, which feature different designs, such as featuring the posters and other art from the film on the tickets, that are typically aimed at the fanbase. These tickets have increased greatly in popularity in recent years. They're generally limited in availability as well, but given their rise in popularity, more are also being made available.

Some news sources and people on social media are running away with it misleadingly without all the details. Here is the original source: https://www.cinematoday.jp/news/N0127529

Again, not dismissing this, it's good of course, but these Mubichike tickets are a lot more popular these days, and since they're limited (especially in years prior), it's not especially difficult for a current film to outpace past films in those sales by pretty big numbers.

Matrix Resurrections isn't looking too strong this weekend. Reservations aren't bad, exactly, just pretty muted. But if it's appealing to an older audience, which I expect it very likely is (hard time seeing anyone under 30 or 40 being that interested in it), sometimes reservations can be a bit subdued. That would also suggest its audience is fairly limited though.

So it's looking to open decently well, maybe around ¥500 million? Probably still a tad early to make a prediction, but we can probably rule out anything significant at this point, most certainly no where near its predecessors. I'd expect a ¥3/4 billion result.

I'll have the Matrix Box Office History post up later today.

It probably more due the movie won't be finished by summer, Shinkai just finished the storyboard this month so the movie is schedule is behind WWY which barely finished in time, pretty sure he also said the casting didn't begin too.

Would december not be a better window to have holiday access compared to late september?

It would. But I think Aiga makes a good point. It almost certainly would have been released in July, August "worst case", if they expected it to be finished in time.

This isn't to say September-November can't work. It's just that most films aren't placed there, especially Sept./Oct., if they're expected to earn up to ¥10 billion or more (none ever have in Sept./Oct., Demon Slayer aside, unless I missed an older film from the 80s/90s). And I actually misspoke above when I said all Miyazaki films have opened in July. Howl's Moving Castle opened in November (presumably because they couldn't finish it in time for July since Miyazaki took over the project from Hosoda). And as long as a film isn't skewing too young, mid/late-November can be a good release frame.

The government is also working to make the third week of September (called "Silver Week") a major holiday period similar to Golden Week, Obon Festival, and New Year. It currently only occurs every 5-6 years with how the two national holidays that week align with Sunday (a day between holidays becomes a holiday, and a Monday after a holiday Sunday becomes a holiday), the next time being in 2026, but a third national holiday is expected to be added to the week in the future to make it a more consistent, likely yearly, full week holiday period.

We've been seeing bigger films aiming for mid-September as a result, so we can likely expect it to become a prime release window pretty soon. Late-August releases for big films could also become more prominent as they'd receive the last week or two of summer vacation dailies, then reach Silver Week a couple weeks later. And just in general, July/August releases would receive boosts when Silver Week becomes a yearly holiday period.

Matrix Box-Office History (1999-)

OPENINGS:
¥2,222,854,550 ($18.8 million) / 1,486,743 - The Matrix Reloaded (2003) *w/previews*
¥1,617,608,800 ($15.0 million) / 1,110,913 - The Matrix Revolutions (2003) *w/previews*

TOTALS:
¥11.00 billion ($88.0 million) / 7.71 million - The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
¥8.70 billion ($62.0 million) / 5.30 million - The Matrix (1999)
¥6.70 billion ($61.8 million) / 4.70 million - The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

An interesting franchise, to say the least.

>The first film was a big breakout back in 1999. I don't have its opening weekend figures (will dig around a little more this week), but it recorded the 5th Biggest Opening Weekend ever when it opened back in September 1999. I have some numbers from the 90s, so I'm thinking its opening was around ¥500/600 million or so. And it was very leggy (6 weeks at #1, 14 weeks in the top 10) as it was very well received. It garnered a ton of goodwill for future films.

>The second film broke the opening weekend record (revenue and admissions), albeit with a large amount of previews included in its opening weekend, and held that record for 17 years! It was finally beaten by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train only last year. The reception was mixed at best though, and it proved to be frontloaded, ultimately failing to live up to its predecessor.

>The third film dropped a good bit from its predecessor's opening weekend, but it still delivered one of the biggest opening weekends ever (it's still the tenth biggest ever), but again, boosted tremendously by tons of previews. Its reception was worse than the second film, and it suffered a severe drop-off in total, falling even well below the original film, much less the huge 40% decline from its own predecessor.

How will the fourth film do this weekend? Well, it's been almost 20 years. A lot of things remain the same in the market, but a lot of things have also changed. First, no previews can be added to opening weekends anymore (and are more or less extinct in the market now), so comparing whatever its debut ends up being to its predecessors is sort of pointless. It's also following two poorly received sequels, so that's not a good sign. And lastly, there's fewer and fewer young people every year in Japan, and that stat is increasing rapidly now. So it'll have to rely more on the older demographics in the market, but they'll be the ones who remember the weak second and third films, so not exactly a group you want to bet on.

So... not expecting big things for the fourth film despite the numbers the franchise put up in the past. Reservations this weekend are decent, so walk-up business will need to be strong. Reservations don't make or break every film, but for a long-established franchise, they should probably be higher. It reminds me a lot of what became of the Terminator franchise in the market. The first three films were very big, but the fourth film saw a drastic decline in its opening and total, and the fifth and sixth films dropped even more.

These older Hollywood franchises have to rely more and more on the aging older generations in Japan since the younger generation keeps declining (rapidly) and just aren't interested in 20 year old foreign releases. I won't be too surprised if Matrix Resurrections would drop another 40% or something (maybe not *quite* that much, but still a lot) from its predecessor.

Disappointing but not surprising about matrix. Quite a shame.

Remembered Boss Baby 2, I think it's flopping too

Reservations are low for The Boss Baby 2. However, it's one we'll need to wait until the day-of-sales to see how it's performing.

Films that skew young, especially towards elementary-aged children like The Boss Baby, typically have poor reservations. 1. The target audience is too young to reserve tickets. 2. Parents usually wait until the weekend to reserve them, if they do at all (versus just walk-up).

It's the only film this upcoming holiday that will be appealing to young children, so I wouldn't count it out until we get some numbers first. It's very likely going to be really leggy too, like the first film, so an opening of ¥200/300 million can still yield a total of ¥2/3 billion. .

Any expectations on what impact the omicron variant might have on the box office in 2022? The next Doraemon and Conan movie are in only 3 and 4 months respectively.

Not anticipating COVID just in general to have any noticeable impact on the box-office moving forward, barring some variant where the vaccine has little/no impact in preventing severe illness.

But even then, Japan's box-office was the most stable in the world, I believe, in 2020. Besides very early on in the Spring of 2020, and then again in the Spring of 2021 (due to Delta and Japan's slow vaccine rollout, less than 1% were vaccinated 8-9 months ago) that caused some large venues like parks/stadiums/theaters to close for a while, Japan has had nothing in the form of lockdowns. Restrictions, yes, but as far as the box-office goes, as long as theaters are open, restrictions or not, it showed little signs of being impacted.

Now, very young-skewing films were clearly impacted in 2020 (and early 2021) since that demographic has proven to be the most cautious regarding COVID. But Crayon Shin-chan performed at its normal levels this past year, and the currently playing Sumikko Gurashi is performing very well, so I think that demographic (basically the family demo with very young children) has more or less returned again.

Japan is also about to reach 80% fully vaccinated (they went from 1% to ~80% in 6/7 months), and their daily cases for about the last 2 months now are pretty miniscule (100/150 a day). Daily deaths are in the low single digits, and there have been some days with 0. And only 3 people are currently hospitalized in Tokyo (14 million population), and just 27 nationwide (126 million pop.) That's pretty incredible for how densely populated Japan is. But the vaccine isn't the sole reason, as the majority of the population still wear masks. Almost half of the population did pre-pandemic anyway (to help prevent other viruses as missing work/school isn't much of an option there), but even more do so now. So, as said, barring some future variant that basically cancels the vaccine out, I don't anticipate any problems.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0's midnight showing counts have gone up substantially since they were announced a couple days ago. It's up to 7 midnight showings at Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (busiest theater in the country) now with a week to go. And Toho Cinemas Namba (one of the ten busiest theaters in the country) is up to 4 showings.

And, of the theaters that have reservations for their midnight showings currently available, they're filling up very fast and are about to sell out. Toho Cinemas Umeda (one of the five busiest theaters in the country) only has 26 seats remaining on its 733-seat screen and 65 seats remaining on its 480-seat screen. No doubt they'll be adding a few more midnight showings.

And better still, it appears that theaters (at least the busiest locations like Toho Shinjuku) are likely to going to be open for 21 hours a day for it, optimizing its showtimes. Shinkuku is already staying open from 8am-2:50am starting this weekend, so moving to 6/7am (open)-3/4am (close) next weekend seems possible if reservations for Jujutsu Kaisen keep this pace.

So, looking very good! Next weekend is basically Jujutsu Kaisen weekend nationwide, too, as the 24th (the day the movie opens) is the anniversary date in the story (and the day the events in the film occurs on), and the next volume of the manga and a new novel are both being released on the 25th.

Widest Releases (Seating) Since 2015 (~70% of the Market):

Seating, [Theaters/Showings], Title (Month, Year)

1,336,504, [267/6,170] - Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (Oct., 2020)
_______
1,123,168, [250/4,797] - Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet (Apr., 2021)
1,085,077, [267/3,786] - Frozen 2 (Nov., 2019)
_______
919,956, [258/3,250] - Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Nov., 2018)
816,498, [251/3,196] - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (July, 2018)
790,550, [257/3,511] - Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time (Mar., 2021)
775,754, [262/2,657] - Toy Story 4 (July, 2019)
766,440, [241/2,556] - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Nov., 2016)
728,306, [267/2,690] - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Dec., 2019)
725,315, [258/2,202] - Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (Apr., 2019)
719,848, [261/2,370] - Weathering With You (July, 2019)
719,670, [261/2,374] - Aladdin (June, 2019)
714,702, [236/2,789] - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dec., 2015)
701,865, [247/2,864] - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (July, 2017)
_______
673,564, [264/2,300] - Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Dec., 2021)
670,255, [254/2,527] - Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Dec., 2017)
668,663, [236/2,346] - Finding Dory (July, 2016)
667,610, [245/2,327] - Beauty and the Beast (Apr., 2017)
658,842, [231/2,256] - One Piece Film Gold (July, 2016)
655,976, [249/1,832] - Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer (Apr., 2018)
648,401, [259/2,096] - Godzilla: King of the Monsters (June, 2019)
648,160, [252/2,037] - Dragon Ball Super: Broly (Dec., 2018)
643,276, [264/2,473] - The Matrix Resurrections (Dec., 2021)
641,067, [261/2,199] - Your Turn to Kill (Dec., 2021)
618,897, [267/2,568] - Belle (July, 2021)
610,314, [259/2,583] - Masquerade Night (Sept., 2021)
608,132, [250/1,979] - Code Blue (July, 2018)
605,267, [239/1,676] - Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter (Apr., 2017)
_______
585,196, [254/1,787] - One Piece Stampede (Aug., 2019)
547,894, [252/1,655] - Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of Moon Exploration (Mar., 2019)
533,783, [258/2,293] - Avengers: Endgame (Apr., 2019)
530,905, [230/1,502] - Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare (Apr., 2016)
530,456, [231/1,727] - Yo-Kai Watch: Great King Enma and the 5 Stories, Nyan! (Dec., 2015)
520,369, [237/1,744] - Jurassic World (Aug., 2015)
517,134, [260/1,835] - Spider-Man: Far From Home (June, 2019)
515,406, [233/1,460] - Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan (Mar., 2016)
508,224, [262/2,262] - 007: No Time to Die (Oct., 2021)
501,322, [240/1,487] - Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the Antarctic (Mar., 2017)

Note: Entry determined by widest day of a film's opening weekend (typically first Saturday).

From the theaters I've looked at, I'm thinking Matrix 4's reservations going into Friday today are a little stronger than Venom 2's from two weeks back. Therefore, I'm predicting a ¥500/550 million (~$4.5/5.0 million) opening weekend and ¥700/750 million (~$6.0/6.5 million) 3-day total.

If it opens around those projections, it should be aiming for a ¥3.5/4.0 billion ($30/35 million) total. Lower-end if its reception is similar to its two predecessors and its seating/premium format showings get cut hard by Jujutsu Kaisen next week and then Spider-Man in three weeks, and the higher-end (and maybe a tad more) if it holds onto a fair amount of premium showings over the holiday period and its reception is closer to the original film.

Looks like tickets for the night showings ju-jutsu kaisen sold out in a matter of minutes. It's probably too early to ask, but how much do you think he will collect on the for the first days?

More or less expecting an opening somewhere around the most recent Detective Conan films (so likely Top 3/5 all-time, if not #2). So should be aiming for ¥2 billion or so based on that, but it might go higher and approach ¥2.5 billion. Its Friday is no doubt going to be a lot higher than the DC films since it has midnights, a giveaway event, a stage greeting (just one right now, but they may expand and include live-viewings of that greeting showing nationwide), AND the 24th of December itself (its opening day) is the same day that the events in the film occur in the story (which big fans won't want to miss).

So the question is: How big will Friday be from all that above, and will it deflate Saturday and Sunday (though mass Friday sellouts can benefit the weekend too)? It's tough to say, but I'll be keeping a close eye on it next week.

Aaaaaand you're right, by the way. Every midnight showing for next week is sold out (including all 7 at Toho Shinjuku). It only took a little over an hour after going live, I think. Or just 40 or so minutes if they went live at 7am (instead of 6am).

Toho Shinjuku will give it its 5 remaining screens for sure, and *might* add 2/3am showings. Many of the others will be adding more (just saw that Toho Namba and Toho Hibiya did) if they sold out that fast. It's probably going to have the second biggest 3-day opening of all-time next week. Not predicting that, yet, but it's looking very likely.

Imagine working these midnight shows. Something like 2,100 people will be at Toho Shinjuku just before midnight next Friday. If they give it their 5 remaining screens, that number will reach around 3,000 people.

Impressive. Looking forward to seeing its friday PS.

Matrix on the other hand seems to be trailing slightly behind venom OD on mimorin.

Breaking News, Corpse, breaking news..... Demon Slayer Mugen Train broke ¥40.43B !!!!!!!! See this : http://www.kogyotsushin.com/archives/alltime/

Detective Conan over ¥7.65B !!!!!!

Yeah, pretty disappointing. Figured it would have had better, or at least equal, walk-up business, but that wasn't the case. Ended up finishing around 15% behind Venom 2 for the day despite going into the day with at least equal (though likely slightly higher) reservations. It's certainly skewing older, but it might actually be skewing a little too old (60+) since it didn't really see an uptick in the evening/night as it should have. Older audiences typically go to the movies in the morning/early afternoon.

Going to have to lower the projection for the weekend to ¥400 million (~$3.5 million) and ¥550 million (~$5 million) for the 3-day result. Probably aiming for about ¥3 billion ($25 million) now. ¥3.35 billion, or less, would be a 50%+ decline from the third film (which dropped almost 40% from the second film).

This really isn't shocking since it had so much going against it (much of which I mentioned in my post yesterday), but was hoping for a little more. There simply isn't much of an audience for these older Hollywood franchises in the market anymore, it appears. There is an ever-growing list of "long-awaited" sequels experiencing severe declines like this. Fewer younger people = a smaller new audience to draw in (plus, kids/teens aren't going to have much interest in a fourth film in an older foreign franchise), and an aging population that becomes less frequent moviegoers over time and either only come out for very specific films (like the movie about running out of retirement funds playing) that interest them or to watch a major breakout everyone's talking about.

The good news, at the expense of The Matrix disappointing of course, is that this allows Jujutsu Kaisen to demand more seating next weekend. It was already going to demand the largest screen(s) already, but it'll pick up more second/third/fourth, etc. largest screens nationwide as a result too.

Enough seating was really the only thing that could hold Jujutsu Kaisen's opening weekend back a bit next week, but with that being relived now, it'll have just about as much potential as it could have outside of a dead market release.

We mentioned how it sold out all its then available midnights nationwide within an hour of them going live, and how theaters were already adding more. Well, it's already sold out all the newly added showings as well (minus one showing at Toho Umeda). Toho Shinjuku leading the way, playing it on 8/12 screens and they're all sold out, so they'll have about 2,300 people converging at their theater at midnight next week!

The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons occurs on Dec. 24th, Xmas Eve, in the movie and story (Shinjuku being one of the two targeted areas), making it the perfect release date and location. And it looks like fans are going to treat Christmas Eve as The Night Parade of a Million Patrons.

I'll update it, and the all-time charts now that Demon Slayer's FINAL final total has finally be released, on Monday/Tuesday.