News
Japanese Box Office, July 11-12
posted on by Egan Loo
Gokusen the Movie, Toya Sato's live-action theatrical film based on Kozueko Morimoto's Gokusen school comedy manga, opened at #1 on Kogyo Tsushinsha's Japanese box office chart during the July 11-12 weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, it earned US$5,064,634 on 409 screens. After three television series, Yukie Nakama is reprising her starring role of Kumiko "Yankumi" Yamaguchi, the high school teacher with yakuza ties, one last time for the film. According to Oricon, the film distributor Toho predicts that that movie will eventually gross in the range of 4 billion yen (about US$40 million).
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha), the second anime film in Hideaki Anno and Khara's four-part theatrical remake of Gainax's Evangelion television anime series, slipped to #2 in its third weekend. It earned the equivalent of US$2,762,654 on 120 screens during its third weekend for a total of US$20,507,111.
Rookies: Graduation (Rookies -Sotsugyō-), Yūichirō Hirakawa's theatrical finale to his live-action television drama adaptation of Masanori Morita's Rookies baseball manga, also fell from #2 to #4 in its seventh weekend. It added US$1,894,007 on 428 screens for a gross-to-date of US$79,132,770. The movie has since been seen over 6.35 million times and earned 7.71 billion yen (US$82 million) as of its 47th day, July 15.
Hitoshi Iwamoto's live-action film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's MW suspense manga dropped from #6 to #9 with US$926,439 on 250 screens. After two weekends, it now has a cumulative total of US$4,126,715. Hiroshi Tamaki (live-action Nodame Cantabile) and Takayuki Yamada (Densha Otoko film) star in this version of the manga which Vertical publishes in North America.
Soreike! Anpanman: Dadandan to Futago no Hoshi, the 21st film in the long-running Anpanman superhero comedy franchise, fell from #7 to #10 in its second weekend. It added US$317,296 on 153 screens for a gross-to-date of US888,757.
Sources: Kogyo Tsushinsha, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Eiga.com
Image © 2009 Gokusen the Movie Production Committee
follow-up of Japanese Box Office, July 4-5
