They rarely play Toei releases. I also noticed Shochiku releases rarely play at them too. My guess is that Toho just refuses to play them, opting to keep their own films (or subsidiary films through Toho-Towa and Towa Pictures) playing instead even if they're not going to sell as many tickets.

Not only does Toho get 50% of any film's earnings at their theater chain (as all chains do), but if it's their own distributed films, they don't have to split much of that remaining 50%. Umeda and Namba are very busy locations, so they get a lot of profit from their own films from such locations.

I should add that Toho likely isn't the only one who favors their own films at some of their own theaters.

Most theaters are owned by the big distributors (Toho, Shochiku, Toei, Kadokawa), who have their own theater chains. It's likely that Toei focuses on their own films at some of their theaters, too, for example. Jurassic World 3 or Kingdom II, for instance, may not be playing at a couple/few of their locations.

Toho Umeda and Toho Namba are two of the biggest and busiest theaters though, that are often tracked, so it becomes more obvious when a film isn't playing at them.

And it makes sense, I suppose.

50% of the revenue is given to the theaters.
50% of the revenue to the distributor(s). And this 50% gets divided up between production companies as needed.

So, distributors receive the 50% of the revenue from films playing at their theaters, and if they're also the distributor of that film too, then they get the remaining 50% if the sole distributor. If they share distributing rights, they still get 25% of the remaining 50%, bringing their share up to 75%. But there are films where that share can definitely be 90% or more when they're also apart of the production company (Toho Pictures, for example).

E.g. A Toho Pictures production distributed by Toho playing at a Toho Cinema is close to pure profit. The only share they're not getting from this would be whatever is left to handover to the copyright holders of an adapted production (which would be like 12.5% or less).

Since Toho has the busiest theater chain, and are by far the biggest distributor in Japan, they have a borderline monopoly over the market. They used to be like 40% market share over the past decade, but it's likely grown since as they acquired Paramount Pictures films (through their subsidiary Towa Pictures) and Disney is on a major decline.

Just saw there is a limited A3 poster being given out exclusively for IMAX showings. I haven't checked every IMAX screen, but the ones I have are sold out or nearly so, and others are reporting how fast they filled up when reservations went live earlier.

This will drive repeat viewings (and very early). The fans that have to "settle" for a standard or 4DX showing this weekend will also be seeing it again in IMAX as soon as they can for the giveaway and because it's the first One Piece film to be in IMAX. And with Obon Festival coming up soon, this couldn't have been a better marketing strategy.

The marketing department knocked it out of the ballpark here in every regard. 25th anniversary celebrations, tons of collaborations with a large variety of different companies, music industry incorporation (even saw there was a live 3D concert back in July on One Piece Day featuring the new character in the movie), giveaways, the perfect release date (Summer Vacation, Obon Festival in week 2, in time with the new manga volume and start of the final arc), and much more.

Suppose there is an opportunity here for them to push the film above the franchise's prior box-office limits.

Toho Cinemas Ikebukuro (Saturday). At a glance, something like 75/80% full for Saturday after just six hours of reservations going up.

Indeed. 8/19 showings sold out after 8 hours of going live. And among the other 11 showings, 6 are almost sold out.

This theater, as we know, is among the busiest, but not doing well here means you're not doing well anywhere.

I'm thinking it can challenge the franchise OW record in revenue as well, since it has IMAX for the first time, and 4DX/MX4D is a lot more popular now. Not sure about admissions. It'd depend on Sunday, assuming Saturday ends up delivering and puts it in a good position first.

Interesting, is there a criteria they use to decide which locations play these films? If it was just business I'd think a theater like Shinjuku would skip on them as well.

I don't know, honestly. I have noticed it's regularly Umeda and Namba regarding the Toho theaters though. For example, they didn't play the recent Dragon Ball Super film either.

And yeah, you'd think Shinjuku would be similarly focused on Toho releases, but perhaps being in Tokyo makes a difference or something.

Interestingly, the Namba Parks Cinema (operated by Shochiku) isn't playing Kingdom II (a Toho, and Sony, film), so that makes two cases of a major release not playing everywhere Osaka, the second busiest market for the box office. Maybe the distributors focus on Osaka (where Namba is located) when deciding what their chains play (focusing on their own releases more).

Speaking of Osaka... One Piece is doing incredible sales there. I'll share in a moment.

Here is how Namba Parks Cinema (top) and Osaka City Station (bottom) look with about 30 hours left before the first showings begin. Both look to be around ~75/80% booked on Saturday already.

Top (Movix Saitama, ~85-90% full)
Middle (Toho Ebina, ~70-75% full)
Bottom (Toho Sendai, ~75-80% full)

Toho Shinjuku (~90%+ full)
Toho Ikebukuro (~85-90% full)
Toho Roppongi Hills (~80-85% full)

Toho Nihonbashi (~75-80% full)
Toho Kinshicho (~90%+ full)
Toho Lalaport (~80-85% full)

This looks stronger than Detective Conan from earlier this year. I don't think it has as many showings (and thus seats), but it has enough to deliver an opening on par with/bigger than it with how full these theaters are. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we might be looking at an opening that might rival Jujutsu Kaisen's.

~¥1.5 billion / ~1 million admissions possible? It honestly looks like it. Biggest August OW is 100% locked for sure, and it's going to squash the previous record (Your Name.). On top of that, setting a new franchise record is looking possible, and if it achieves that, then it'll be approaching some of the biggest opening weekends ever.

Here's another big one (Shinjuku Wald 9), probably giving it the most showings across the country. 13/26 showings are already ~75%+ full, while another 4 are over 50% full, with over a day to go.

I have my target on 1.6b rn. Would be a sick result. Think it's doable. Hopefully sunday doesn't fall off too hard from sat.

And another big T-Joy theater (Umeda Burg 7) that looks to be around 75/80% full already, too:




The bottom image is the same location, just another format (Dolby Atmos).

Since it didn't receive an "excessive" numbers of showings (like 35-45+ showings at some theaters like Detective Conan or Jujutsu Kaisen), there *should* be some spillover into Sunday since these key theaters are already 75%+ full. Now, it'll drop on Sunday, but I doubt it's as big of a drop (24%) as Film Gold experienced.

¥1.6 billion would be crazy, although we have seen that sort of become the wall or upper limit for opening weekends in recent years (Frozen II, DC24, and JJK0 all had near identical OWs at ¥1.6 billion and 1.1/1.2 million admissions), so it could place among them.

I'd be ecstatic with anything above the franchise record, and that's looking close to a done deal as we get closer to the weekend.

I don't know if it's fair to put JJK in there since it had an enormous OD prior which deflated its OW. Had it opened on saturday like OP I struggle to believe it wouldn't have easily broken 2b on the weekend. Or even if it had more of a normal OD, but the many factors it had going for it really pushed the frontloadedness of it.

Another factor that makes me wonder is that the way the advertisement went on about Shanks' presence might drive up frontloadedness making people believe this will play more of a part in the main story. I don't know though, just food for thought.

PS are looking crazy good, even accounting for the fact that it won't have that crazy amount of shows I think it can be up there. Shame it doesn't look like mimorin will be fixed by then.

It looks like Toei's strategy of releasing the movie on a Saturday and not a Friday to maximize OW numbers is working.

If it opens with 1.5-1.6 billion yen, what totals would we be looking at? 8-9 billion?

A 4.5-5x multiplier is pretty likely since that's been the range from Strong World on. And all of them have opened a week or two before a major holiday period (New Year for Strong World and Film Z, Obon Festival for Film Gold, Stampede, and now Film Red), so this keeps their trajectory pretty close since their openings are under comparable circumstances. Technically Stampede did much better with a 6.9x, but it opened on a Friday. Its multiplier using the three-day was 4.3x, which was pretty solid (and how it became the second highest grossing film), so its two-day multiplier might have gone a little above 5 if given the Saturday release date.

So, if it opens to ¥1.5/1.6 billion, I think we can expect a total of ~¥7-8 billion. ¥6.88 billion is needed to break the franchise record. ~¥7 billion looks to be the mark to hit to take the Summer 2022 crown this year, too, so it could win the summer.

True on JJK0. It may have achieved the second biggest OW (which would have been the biggest excluding Demon Slayer) if given a Saturday release date, but, as mentioned, the Friday was massive given it was the same date the events in the film actually take place. So, it only had to settle for claiming the second biggest 3-day opening (and total) instead.

Back to One Piece, I see many people referencing the music being a key reason they have interest in this one. And it wouldn't be surprising if a fair portion of the audience turning out would list the music as a reason for going, too, given how music has played a major role in the success of many of biggest films in the market (as well as propelling smaller films to success, too).

The music is to appeal to the more casual fans or general moviegoers, and it seems to be working.

And including Shanks (and his daughter) will have big appeal with the core fanbase. Now, if he barely has any screen time and his role has little/no impact on the story, will it cause some of them to be disappointed as a result of "misleading" marketing? Hard to say.

But by including an element that brings in casual fans and potential general audiences (music), as well as an element to hype up the fanbase (Shanks), they're probably reaching as many people as possible with some interest in One Piece (be it just general awareness or the biggest fan out there) and turning out a lot of them based on these reservations.

T-Joy Yokohama Burg 13 (~70-75% full)

I also looked at every Toho Cinema (66 of the 69 playing it, Shibuya joining Umeda and Namba), and all but four (the more rural ones) didn't have at least one showing at 50% capacity. That'd be incredible to see just before opening, but it's especially strong given they just went live a day and a half ago. And there were probably two dozen or so locations at that ~70/75% capacity level (or higher) for the entire day.

Using a ~28% or so ticket share for AEON (which seems reasonable looking at the seats lost when it went out) gives me about 790-800k seats for OP, which is well above what Gold got and honestly a pretty impressive amount in and of itself. Doesn't look like this is going to be too far behind Conan and JJK on that front.

Yeah, and Jurassic World 3 got hit pretty hard (over 40%) in just its second weekend. Given JW3 opened very well still, I would have expected it to hold onto a bit more seats regardless of One Piece.

But... that's just better news for One Piece. It has the necessary seats to do its thing this weekend. Some theaters could have given it a few more showings (because they're going to be 90%+ booked on Saturday, a few are already), but I kind like that they didn't go too excessive at the same time. Should keep Sunday from falling *too* hard due to spillover.

It's too bad we can't accurately track it versus other major openers though since Aeon's system hasn't been corrected yet (starting to doubt it will...).

I'm very interested to see what the presales figure is tomorrow. That, at least, can still be directly compared to other films since it never included Aeon.

I don't know if they're right, but someone on 5ch posted that Aeon Cinemas has it playing 1,112 times on Saturday, for a total of 292,406 seats. Looks like some went really big on it (e.g. one has 30 showings). Don't know if it's the programmer who shared the data, maybe they can still get this data, but I hope no one manually counted that... I mean, I'm glad they did (if it's accurate), but oof.

If true, that'd be 910,956, which is huge, obviously.