Japan Box Office: ‘Star Wars’ Knocked Off Top Spot, Passes $80M

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was knocked from the top of the Japanese box office during its sixth weekend in release by the ?616 million ($5.2 million) opening of Nobunaga Concerto, a time-travel samurai drama.

Following the local hit formula of manga-to-TV-drama-to-the-big-screen, Nobunaga Concerto is the story of a high school boy (Shun Oguri) who goes back in time to find he’s the spitting image of historical figure Nobunaga Oda. He is asked to pretend to be the warlord who tried to unify Japan in the 16th century. The manga, by Ayumi Ishii, was made into a TV series featuring the same cast in 2014.

Star Wars brought in another $3.2 million over the weekend to bring its local cumulative total to more than $81.4 million from 6.2 million tickets sold.

Local masked-hero kids film Shuriken Sentai Ninninger vs. ToQger the Movie: Ninja in Wonderland opened in third place.

Another snappy title, Yo-Kai Watch the Movie: The Great King Enma and the Five Tales, Meow!, the anime and merchandising franchise hit, fell to the fourth spot after six weekends. Yo-Kai Watch has brought in $43.4 million so far in its home market. 

Paul King’s Paddington fell two spots to fifth following its long-delayed release in Japan last weekend and has collected $2.7 million to date.

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Seasons (Les Saisons), the latest nature documentary from Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, fell one spot to sixth and has now earned a solid $2.2 million in Japan. The French directors’ Oceans took in a massive $25.5 million in Japan in 2009, topping even its total in France. That performance was no doubt a factor in the decision to hold Seasons’ world premiere at the Tokyo Film Festival in October and debut the pic in Japan first. However, Seasons isn’t on course to get even close to that total at its current pace.  

Robert Zemeckis‘ The Walk, which opened that same Tokyo fest, also disappointed, launching this weekend in eighth spot with $603,000.  

Steven Spielberg’s Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies propped up the chart from the bottom in its third weekend and now has a local cume of $4.8 million.  

Next weekend will see the release of Johnny Depp-starrer Black Mass in Japan.