A franchise-best $6.2 million (?736 million) opening in Japan and a Friday night head start for Furious 7 couldn’t stop it from being overtaken by two homegrown anime films on a busy box-office weekend in Japan.
Dragonball Z: Resurrection F, the 19th installment in the popular anime series, opened top of the charts with $7.6 million (?901 million) from 716,000 tickets on Saturday and Sunday after its world premiere was held in Los Angeles on Apr. 11 as part of the collaboration between Fox International and Toei.
In second place was another 19th installment of an anime franchise, Case Closed: Sunflowers of Inferno, the latest Conan the Detective film, which took $7.4 million (?875 million) from 687,000 tickets in two days.
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Japan was the last international territory for Furious 7, released locally as Wild Speed: Skymission, and the only major market where the all-conquering auto action film didn’t top the charts on its opening.
Another local anime hit, Doraemon: Nobita’s Space Heroes, fell down the charts to No. 8 and has now brought in $31.5 million (?3.75 billion) during its seven-week run in Japan.
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Birdman fell to ninth after bowing last weekend and now has a total of $2 million from 187,430 admissions in Japan. Fellow Academy Award-winner Whiplash failed to crack the top 10 after its release on Friday.
Next weekend will see releases for Disney’s Cinderella and Ryuzo and His Seven Henchman, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano‘s romp about elderly yakuza gangsters.
Twitter: @GavinJBlair
