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Nobunaga Concerto Is 1st Film to Top Star Wars: TFA in Weekend Box Office Totals in Japan
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The live-action film of Ayumi Ishii's Nobunaga Concerto historical manga topped the Japanese box office in its opening weekend. The film opened on Saturday on 324 screens and sold 465,956 tickets and earning 615,988,400 yen (about US$5.21 million) over the weekend. Nobunaga Concerto is the first film to top Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Japanese weekend box office totals since the American film opened last month. (Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Enma Daioh to Itsutsu no Monogatari da Nyan! did top Star Wars: The Force Awakens in raw number of tickets sold in both of their first two weekends, but not in yen grossed during those two weekends.) Nobunaga Concerto is projected to gross upwards of 3 billion yen (about US$25 million), since it is tracking 137% higher than starring actor Shun Oguri's last major film, Lupin the 3rd (2.45 billion yen or US$21 million).
Star Wars: The Force Awakens dropped to #2 in its sixth weekend, ending a three-week run of topping the Japanese box office in both tickets sold and box office totals. The film sold 159,769 tickets for 263,278,600 yen (about US$2.24 million) over the past weekend in 368 theaters. The film has sold a cumulative total of 6.16 million tickets for 9.6 billion yen (about US$81.31 million). Although it did not rank #1 for six straight weekends like Big Hero 6 (9.18 billion yen or US$78 million) did last year, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is poised to top 10 billion yen (US$85 million) by mid-January.
The Shuriken Sentai Ninninger vs. Ressha Sentai ToQGer: The Movie - Ninja in Wonderland film ranked #3. It opened on 316 screens on Saturday, selling 105,911 tickets and earning 106,465,700 yen (about US$901,461). It is trending at 49.9% of Gekijō-ban Kamen Rider Drive Surprise Feature and Shuriken Sentai Nin'ninger The Movie's double-feature box office total last August, and therefore is expected to eventually reach 600 million yen (US$5.1 million).
Eiga Yo-kai Watch: Enma Daioh to Itsutsu no Monogatari da Nyan!, the second film in the Yo-kai Watch franchise, dropped from #2 to #4 in its sixth weekend in 358 theaters.
The live-action film of Ichigo Takano's Orange manga dropped from #4 to #7 in its seventh weekend in 302 theaters.
Kizumonogatari I: Tekketsu-hen, the first film in the trilogy adapting NisiOisin's light novel of the same name, fell from #6 to #9 in its third weekend in 108 theaters.
Sources: Eiga.com, Movie Walker
