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10th One Piece Film Tops Ponyo's Opening Weekend (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
One Piece Film Strong World, the 10th One Piece anime film, opened with 1.038 billion yen (about US$11.7 million) this past weekend. By comparison, Ponyo took in 1.025 billion yen (US$11.55 million) during its opening weekend last year. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened on 844 screens in Japan this past July with 990 million yen (US$11.2 million). Last year's One Piece film, One Piece: Episode of Chopper + Fuyu ni Saku, Kiseki no Sakura, earned only 920 million yen (US$11 million) during its entire run — less than the 10th film earned in just two days.
One Piece Film Strong World opened on 188 screens throughout Japan. 103 of those screens had sold-out showings throughout the weekend. The film's per-screen average was 5.52 million yen (US$62,200) — the record for a nationwide release in Japan.
On the first day, the film made 553 million yen (US$6.24 million), and it made 485 million yen (US$5.47 million) on the second day. In all, the film was seen 820,000 times.
Part of the reason for the huge audiences was The One Piece Volume 0 manga that was given to the first attendees. Toei has decided to add another printing of 1 million copies for the manga. Unlike previous One Piece films, Oda had personally overseen the new film's production.
Source: Eiga.com, Mainichi Shimbun
Update: More background information added.
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