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Doraemon 3D CG Film Tops Box Office With 988 Million Yen
posted on by Egan Loo
Stand By Me Doraemon, the first 3D CG film starring the anime robot cat Doraemon, debuted at #1 at the Japanese box office this past weekend. It sold 554,911 tickets for 767,248,000 yen (about US$7.50 million) on 319 screens from Saturday to Sunday.
The movie opened on Friday during the current summer break, even though most films open on Saturday. Over its first three days, it sold 726,739 tickets for 988,257,700 yen (US$9.66 million).
According to a web survey, 88.4% of the respondent cried during the film. The audience demographics was 47% male, 21.5% in their 20s, 20.4% in their 30s, 20.4% in their 40s, and 20.4% in elementary school age or younger.
The #2 film was Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno, while the #3 film was Transformers: Age of Extinction.
The manga creator duo Fujiko Fujio (Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko) created Doraemon in 1969. In the story, the robotic cat was sent by a boy in the future to the present day to help the boy's hapless grandfather, Nobita. Doraemon, Nobita, and other children deal with everyday childhood issues, solve (and cause) problems with the gadgets in Doraemon's fourth-dimensional pocket, and embark on escapades through time and space.
49-year-old Takashi Yamazaki (Returner, Always: Sunset on Third Street, Ballad, Space Battleship Yamato) and 48-year-old Ryûichi Yagi (Pénélope tête en l'air line director, Moyashimon 3D CG director) helmed this 36th Doraemon film after collaborating on Japan's first feature-length 3D CG anime film, Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki. Yamazaki also wrote the screenplay.
Source: Sports Nippon via 0takomu
