2004 business figures

[Aaron Gerow]

The Japanese film industry released its business numbers for 2004, and 
the results were overall quite good. Total box office set a record at 
210.9 billion yen and total attendance reached 170 million for the 
first time since 1983. With the success of Howl's Moving Castle and 
Sekai no chushin de, ai o sakebu, box office for Japanese film rose by 
17.8% over the previous year, and accounted for 37.5% of the total box 
office. There were 310 Japanese films released, and 339 foreign, 
showing at a total of 2825 screens (an increase again from last year). 
The increase in attendance is not keeping pace with the increase in 
screens, but industry tops are hoping for a yearly attendance figure of 
200 million people in the near future. Sales of videos and DVDs was 
estimated at 493.7 billion yen.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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