I'm falling behind with the updates... It'll probably take me the next couple days to get things caught up.

Thanks for sharing the data here, Kanroji. They'll all be updated in the yearly chart posts this week.

A2 presales feel anemic to me. Really worried about how it's going to perform here even moreso with SK setting a bad walk-up precedent for the film. Considering the market situation in having actual competition for the holidays here is fairly unique, if it starts as slow as it seems to be starting this might have a big problem.

The $ fall from A1 to A2 is going to be one for the record books.

Saturday is looking better so let's hope for a healthy bump. Japan isn't super filled with IMAX theaters, so hopefully walkups will be nice still.

Because of its Big average ticket price due to 3D/Premium share which will be high. It makes me wonder if it’s possible for Avatar 2 to have a 3-day opening of ¥1 Billion?

From 12/16 Cameron's "Avatar: Way of Water" will be screened at 1466 Screens nationwide, which is the largest number in the history of Japanese domestic movie theaters. Previous record was held by Sony's "The Amazing Spider-Man" (1092 screens) back in 2012!!

Very impressive... However, friday starts off quite slow, but it's early. Maybe it'll play better at night (could indicate some demographic struggles though).

I don't get the feeling this is looking at a big OW right now.

I wish I could be on to cover it, but my schedule is so packed right now with so many things. I'll do my best.

I would hope it easily breaks ¥1 billion over the 3-day. ¥1 billion *should* be a reasonable expectation for the 2-day (ignoring the early numbers). That's a rather "low" bar for the 3-day period for this film (it'd only be the... 6th (?) biggest 3-day for a Hollywood film since 2020 and well outside the top 10 (maybe 15) overall since 2020). Unless legs are really spectacular, it'd almost certainly miss ¥10 billion in this scenario.

I don't know... just getting a lot of bad feelings on this film in Japan right now from the early numbers. The list of negatives against it were quite high going into the weekend (and now reviews are just... okay). I hope it's not the case, but kinda feel it'll be one of those markets that's a letdown for Hollywood. And Disney absolutely needs this to succeed. If it doesn't, I think it's time to close the door on them in Japan.

Apparently in admission it is running behind Dr. Coto at number 2 but will be number 1 in gross due to the huge percentage of Avatar 2 gross from 3D/Premium screens. So basically its not doing well outside such format and also I feel its a possibility not only its gross will decline from the first one in Dollar but also in Yen.

Well, it is still early. I mean, if it was going to be a guaranteed uber-blockbuster, it probably would be doing better even at this point. But it's still hard to say.

*IF* it disappoints in Japan, we at least have a rather long list of why it happened and it won't be a WTF moment.

In case someone asks and I'm not around this weekend:

>Common precedent of sequels to high performing predecessors declining.
>No novelty factor to bring in casuals. (Seeing films, any film, in 3D was a huge craze in Japan from 2010-2012 until it died.)
>No notable home video sales or TV broadcast ratings for the original. (Suggests audiences were lukewarm to it.)
>13 year wait. (Japan's demographics have changed/aged a good bit since then, pop. decline)
>Disney release. (They're really, really, really struggling in Japan.)

Those will be the main reasons IF (again IF) it disappoints. It's quite the list to overcome.

Looks really grim here. I am not overly surprised as I was very worried about how it would do here, but damn, awful.

I don't want to throw the b word out, but if it doesn't recover BIG in the evening... It might just be.

Sat/sun will be a bit better from what I'm seeing but yea pretty safe to say it's kind of bombing. Since the share of PLFs and 3D is sky high here I kind of expect a ludicrous atp of like 1650 or even 1700 yen, and even then, I am kind of seeing the opening only at like 700M for the 3 days MAX. Bleh.

The big theaters might allow to stay on premium screens through the holidays which could allow it to leg out ok I suppose, rest will cut its seating DRASTICALLY after the weekend. But it kind of doesn't matter at this point since it clearly is selling next to nothing outside the premiums anyway.

Well... I think it's a bomb, or is on the path to becoming one. Even if you double (or more) its admissions from the usual locations and give it a ¥1700-1800 atp, it probably didn't even do ¥200 million ($1.5 million) today. Or if it did, it's just barely.

Saturday will be better of course, but this isn't a kids/family movie. It's not like it'll double/triple up. In all likelihood, the Friday suggests ¥500 million ($3.5-4 million) or a bit better is all it'll do this weekend, so ¥700 million ($5 million) 3-Day is probably best-case or so.

That's... Bad. It will likely open at #1 in gross due to its atp but admissions? Could miss #1 and fight for second/third. .

I've been weary of it here for the many reasons posted above, but the numbers so far suggest an even worse result.

Yikes man even if it legs out after this OW, it still will decline from the first one in Yen. There could be a possibility where it could even miss the ¥10 Billion mark.

Didn't I tell you all that Avatar 2 shouldn't release at all? Can't imagine about the decline it gonna record! We thought SLAM DUNK not gonna make ¥10B (ofc it won't unless supported with admission privileges) but the thing is that Avatar 2 gonna be real embrassing moment in the market. ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

How much will it decline in $? 75%? 80%?

It's hard to project this early, but yeah, the decline in USD is going to be severe. We always knew it'd be a huge drop since the exchange rate is SO unfavorable now vs when the original played, but we could see a 50-60% decline in USD, or even higher if legs aren't extraordinary (like...a 20x multiplier again).

It's probably losing ~$100 million (or more) vs the original.

And Disney releases have also been among the most frontloaded in Japan because of Disney+, so I don't know how legs will really be here. Like every Disney release has been very frontloaded, not just the MCU films. I don't even think it has to go to streaming early to have an effect there. Audiences just seem fine waiting until films eventually go on there regardless of when, really.

Man months before its release, I thought Theaters would treat Avatar 2 differently than other Disney release due to director James Cameron wanting a longer theatrical window and its box office would also be different than other Disney ones, but I was wrong. It turns out that a month before its theater count was N/A just like other Disney releases and its box office is not that good as the result suggests despite being number one in gross, but in admissions it is number two. So basically depending on legs it will be either an okay market for Avatar 2 or among the worst markets for it.

I don't think it's theaters, really. (Regarding the OW.) I mean, advance sales weren't available until this week because it's a Disney film, but it ended up getting the optimal number of theaters and even a record amount of screens due to all the premium formats. It's easy for audiences to check it out.

It just had a ton of negatives going against it. I can't say who would be going to this. If it's fans of the original... they seem pretty few if we go off home video sales/TV broadcast numbers. The admissions the first film did isn't representative of how people liked the first because of how it was treated as a novelty release (the first must-see 3D film). Many checked it out just for that reason. When Alice took its 3D screens, it died (dropped 82%) and ended its run soon after. That reason isn't there this time.

It's not theaters. Mostly it just seems like the film has no appeal outside premium screens here - which Japan has very little of, definitely not enough to live off of if the film is absolutely dead outside of them. Looking at IMAX screens sales are good across the board and it's even seeing sellouts ahead of the weekend - then you look at regular shows and it's insanely dry. And I don't mean dry as in relatively weak, I mean it as in those are selling like shit.

There could be a ridicolously weird situation in that I could see the big theaters actually letting it keep a decent chunk of the premiums because it's actually not selling poorly on those, while massively cutting its regular shows instead (which are just about worthless anyway).

I have no idea how to even put out a prediction here - because of what I've seen I have to imagine rural locations are doing much worse than what mimorin tracked, so I expect a much higher usuals%, but ATP will likely be ridicolous instead. I saw the re-release had something silly like a 1900-2000 ATP, and with how much of a share of these sales is likely IMAX 3D, I don't think this will really be off that by much if at all.

Feels like I'm coming out to like...170-180M OD or something like that overall, but this is such a tentative number it could be a huge miss. Looking at PS I'd expect both saturday and sunday to perform better than friday, so this could maybe land on 600-800M for the 3days, I guess, or something like that, which would be...not super awful if it hits the high range, I guess?

I think there might be elements in the film that rubs some Japanese people in the wrong way. The first film's message is save the nature and of course it's the universal message that every country can agree with it. The second film's message, however, is save the ocean......

I actually found a website that post several countries OW chart and among them are Japan right here: https://www.kobis.or.kr/kobis/business/ ... iceList.do
I known corpse said few post ago about his busy schedule but this weekend results are actually up at that website and will post a screenshot of weekend results below: