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Haruhi Film in Top 10 with 89,010,100 yen (Updated)

The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya film, the first ever film in the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, opened on Saturday and earned in the range of 100 million yen (about US$1 million) in its first two days. That was enough to rank the 163-minute film at #7 on Kogyo Tsushinsha's weekend chart in Japan. (The Eiga.com website lists Kogyo Tsushinsha's ranking, but also puts the film at #6 in its own tally.) In this Kyoto Animation film, chief director Tatsuya Ishihara and director Yasuhiro Takemoto adapted the fourth Haruhi Suzumiya light novel from Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito.

The film opened on only 24 screens, which led to long lines and high per-screen averages in box office receipts. The Mainichi Shimbun paper's Mantan Web site reported that about 500 fans stood in line early Saturday morning at Tokyo's Ikebukuro district to catch the first screening at 8:00 a.m.

By comparison, the weekend's #1 film in Japan, James Cameron's Avatar, is in its seventh weekend on about 680 screens. Neither Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st nor Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works ranked in the top 10 when they opened in the same weekend last month. Viewers spent 61,292,300 yen (US$685,700) to watch the Nanoha film 39,863 times on 19 screens in its first weekend. Similarly, viewers spent 37,699,500 yen (US$420,400) to watch the Fate/stay night film 24,407 times on 12 screens in its first weekend.

Bandai Entertainment, the North American distributor of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya television anime series, posted a video on late last month that mentioned the promotion of "the second season DVDs." The company then posted a revised version of that video on Monday that indicated that the second season DVDs will ship in one complete collection. Little, Brown Young Readers is publishing the third Haruhi Suzumiya light novel volume in North America this July, and Yen Press acquired both the main manga adaptation by Gaku Tsugano and Puyo's The Melancholy of Suzumiya-Haruhi-Chan "official gag manga."

Image © 2009 Nagaru Tanigawa • Noizi Ito / member of SOS

Update: More background information added.

Update: According to the Eiga Consultant Nikki (Movie Consultant Blog), viewers spent 89,010,100 yen (US$994,153) to watch The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 60,306 times during its first weekend. That gives the film a per-screen average of 3.7 million yen (US$41,000), compared to Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works' 3.14-million-yen (US$35,100) average on 12 screens, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The MOVIE 1st's 3.22-million-yen (US$36,000) average on 19 screens, and Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance's (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha's) 4.27-million-yen (US$47,700) average on 120 screens. Thanks, bayoab.