Last week, the Japanese market ushered in two powerful new works debuted, and the beginning of the summer file reached a climax, continuing the excellent situation of the Japanese film market since the beginning of the year. Pixar Animation's new "Toy Story 4" slashed nearly 1.4 billion yen in the first two days of the first weekend, with a better-than-expected opening weekend champion. The theatrical version of Pokémon: Super Dream Counterattack Evolution also earned more than 550 million yen in the first weekend, ranking second at the weekend box office. Disney's fairy tale blockbuster "Aladdin" collected nearly 500 million yen over the weekend, retreating to the third place in the rankings. The marvel universe's new film "Spider-Man: The Hero's Expedition" closed another 240 million yen over the weekend, falling to the fourth place in the weekend list. The local drama film "Killer Restaurant" fell less than 30% the following weekend, retreating to the third place in the weekend box office.
Disney's Disney-released Pixar animation "Toy Story 4" opened in the Japanese market last week, starting at 556 screens in the first weekend, mobilizing 1.031 million viewers in two days over the weekend, and winning 13.77 yen at the box office. This sequel, produced by Pixar after nine years, is the first imported animated film in the history of Japanese cinema to exceed one million people on the opening weekend and 1 billion yen in the opening weekend box office. Benefiting from Japan's "Ocean Day" national holiday on Monday, "Toy Story 4" exceeded 800 million yen in a single day on Sunday, setting a single-day box office performance in recent years. After taking into account the results of the first day of box office on Friday and the Monday holiday, the new work of the series voiced by the original Renma has reached a cumulative box office of 2.44 billion yen in Japan, almost catching up with the cumulative results of the three weeks of the release of "Spider-Man: Hero Expedition", directly parachuting the eighth place in the box office list of this year's foreign paintings.
Released in 2010, "Toy Story 3" set a record for the opening of imported animation and a total box office record, and Disney's song and dance animation "Frozen" broke its record for imported animation singles with a score of 25.5 billion yen five years ago, but the opening record has only now officially become ancient. Toy 4 significantly increased the highest opening weekend for imported animated films maintained by Toy 3 by 41%, an increase far greater than expected. In the japanese film history animation opening record list, "Toy 4" is second only to "Monster Watch" (1.628 billion yen) and "Detective Conan: Fist of Cyan" (1.464 billion yen) two local animations. The film also set the best opening performance of an imported film since 2007's "Pirates of the Caribbean 3". "Toy Story 4" has a good reputation among the audience, and with the blessing of the summer program, its final box office should easily surpass the 10.8 billion yen of the previous game, creating a new peak in the Japanese box office of the series.
Toho's theatrical version of the anime Pokémon: Strike Back on Super Dreams was released on Friday on the same day as Toy Story 4, starting on 408 screens in the first weekend and mobilizing 454,000 spectators over two days over the weekend, earning 553 million yen at the box office, as expected. The film is the first theatrical version of the Pokémon series in the Reiwa era, the first 3D computer-produced animation in the series, and a remake of the first film version of the series, Super Dream Strikes Back. Despite the fierce competition brought by "Toy Story 4", the opening weekend of "Super Dream Counterattack Evolution" still increased by 10% compared with last year's theatrical version, and the performance was nearly 100 million yen higher than the live-action version of "Detective Pikachu" (456 million yen in the first weekend) produced by Hollywood this year. Taking into account the box office on the first day of Friday and the holidays on Monday, the 22nd installment of the Pokémon series has grossed 914 million yen, and its final box office is expected to break the 3 billion yen mark again.
Disney's live-action fairy tale film "Aladdin" mobilized another 350,000 viewers in the sixth weekend of its release, and earned another 491 million yen at the box office, pushing back to third place on the weekend list by two new films. The fantasy film, starring Will Smith, is down just 30 percent from the previous week, and the trend is still solid considering the pinch between the two new films. As of Sunday, the cumulative Japanese box office of this family movie has reached 9.576 billion yen, easily surpassing "Detective Conan's Cyan Fist" (9.1 billion) and successfully topped the 2019 annual box office. According to the current trend, "Aladdin" is about to easily break through the 10 billion yen before this weekend, and the final result is still very likely to catch up with the 12.4 billion yen at the end of the live-action version of "Beauty and the Beast".
Sony's Marvel Universe movie Spider-Man: The Hero's Quest grossed another 229 million yen in its third weekend of release, slipping to fourth place on the weekend charts. The 23rd film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fell 42 percent from the previous weekend, and the decline narrowed slightly at the holiday bonus. As the finale of the third phase of the MCU, "Hero Expedition" has grossed 2.47 billion yen (as of Monday) in the three weeks of release in the Japanese market, easily surpassing another MCU movie released this year, "Captain Marvel" (2.06 billion yen). According to the current trend, the final landing point of "Hero Expedition" will be around 3.2 billion yen, which will be 15% to 20% higher than "Return of the Hero" two years ago.
Warner's local drama film "Killer Restaurant" mobilized 113,600 viewers the following weekend and collected another 151 million yen at the box office, falling to the fifth place in the weekend box office list. The suspense film, based on Hirayama's novel of the same name, is down 26 percent from the opening weekend and is in an extremely solid position. Ten days after its release, the film, directed by MasakaZumi Kanagawa and starring Ryuya Fujiwara, grossed nearly 640 million yen. According to the current trend, its final box office is still expected to hit 1.5 billion yen.
Shochiku's action comedy "Killer's Fable" collected another 101 million yen in the fourth weekend of its release, ranking sixth at the weekend box office. The film, based on Nan Katsuhisa's manga of the same name, is down just 27 percent from the previous weekend, and the trend is also added to the long holiday weekend. Twenty-four days after its release, the new film, starring Junichi Okada, Fumino Kimura, and Fushi Soki, has grossed 1.479 billion yen at the box office and has already exceeded 1.5 billion yen on Monday holidays. According to the current trend, its final landing point will be around 2 billion yen.
Shochiku's theatrical version of the anime "His Royal Highness the Prince of Song: Kingdom of True Love" received another 62.6 million yen over the weekend, falling to seventh place on the weekend charts. Based on the popular women's game released by Broccoli, the new game is 20% better than the previous weekend, and the cumulative box office has reached 908 million yen in the five weeks of release, and the final box office will exceed 1 billion yen without suspense.
Animated theatrical version of Anpanman: Twinkle! The Vanilla Princess of the Ice Nation collected another 57.57 million yen over the weekend, ranking eighth on the weekend list. The theatrical release of the Anpanman animated series fell 24 percent from the previous weekend, grossing just 335 million yen in the three weeks of release.
The suspense film "The News Reporter", starring Shen Enjing and Matsuzaka Momori, collected more than 41 million yen over the weekend, and the cumulative box office in the three weeks of release only exceeded 300 million yen.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, the box office units in this article are all in Japanese yen.