1998 at the BO

[Mark Schilling]

From: Mark Schilling <schill at gol.com>
To:  KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Re: "Odorou Daisosasen" BO
Date: Wednesday, January 27, 1999 

Stepehn Cremin asked: 

I also read an article about Japan's box office in this week's "Variety" 
> which reported the accumulated box office of "Odoru Daisosasen" at 
> US$40m, whereas in the magazine's box office charts it was still just 
> under US$18m.  (Hollywood Reporter gives an even lower figure.)  Which 
> figure can be trusted?

My short answer is -- the figures you can trust are in "Screen
International"!
Here's why -- we make it clear, in every issue, that our figures from Japan
are for the nine major cities. Why not the proviinces as well? Kogyo
Tsushin, which compiles box office numbers for the industry, reports only
on the nine major cities on a weekly  
basis. So the figure of $18 million is approximately what "Odoru
Daisosasen" had grossed in those cities as of last week. 

The figure of $40 million sounds more like the total film rentals or haikyu
shunyu -- which Toho predicts will amount to from Y4.5 billion ($39.8
million) to Y5.0 billion ($44.2 million) by the time the film finishes its
first run. Its total gross, or kogyo shunyu, will come to nearly twice
those figures. 


Mark Schilling