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Toho Projects 28% Rise in Year-End Profit Due to Shin Godzilla, 'your name.'

The Nikkei Asian Review website reported on Tuesday that film production company TOHO is projecting a rise in its net profit by 28% to 33 billion yen (about US$317 million) for the year ending in February 2017. TOHO attributes the rise to the box office performance of Shin Godzilla and your name. (Kimi no Na wa.).

TOHO had earlier projected a 14% drop to 22.3 billion yen (about US$214 million). TOHO Managing Director Toshiyuki Urai stated that the company had not expected the success.

Makoto Shinkai's your name. has earned 15,414,488,300 yen (about US$148 million) as of Sunday, after 52 days at the Japanese box office. The film has sold a total of 11,842,864 tickets, and has so far maintained its top position in the box office for eight straight weekends. Shin Godzilla has earned over 7.7 billion yen, and fell off the box office top 10 in its 12th weekend.

The report notes that TOHO is focusing on more experience-based entertainment for theaters, opting to install more 4DX and MX4D systems in theaters. With the 4DX or MX4D systems, certain theaters have motion seats that move in sync with certain action sequences onscreen. Similarly, effects such as scents, wind, and mist will operate in accordance with the action onscreen.

Japanese box office sales in 2015 amounted to 217.1 billion yen (about US$2.08 billion), which is the second-highest year on record.

Source: Nikkei Asian Review