Live action film “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I” directed by Takashi Miike finally made its premiere in Japan last August 4 across 323 screens. Despite coming in with much hype and high anticipation due to the popularity of the manga and anime, the film underwhelms at the box office, opening at no. 5 with just 166 million Yen on 117,000 admissions. This is a number definitely below expectations and a stark contrast to live action “Gintama’s” opening numbers 3 weeks ago (393K admissions, 541M Yen).
The Jojo live action film opened behind “Kamen Rider Ex-Aid the Movie: True Ending” (200K admissions, 375M Yen) and the second week of “Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai”. Similary, another live action film “Tokyo Ghoul” opened at a disappointing 6th place last July 29 (166K admissions, Y232M) and dropped out of the top 10 on its second week.
“JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I” is also touted as the first collaboration between Japanese movie giants Warner Brothers and Toho, and reportedly has plans for sequels. However, with the film’s costly production, which includes filming in Spain and its disappointing weekend numbers, the possibility of sequels is uncertain.
Even closing in on the 1 billion Yen mark will be challenging. With new movies opening this week such as “Spider-Man: Homecoming”, it will be tough for “Jojo” to recover and might just fall out of the top 10. Its weekday numbers are already trailing behind the 4th week of “Gintama”, which is on its way to topping 3 billion Yen and set to become the biggest live action film for this year.
What happened? What makes Gintama, from the same Shonen Jump manga series successful while Jojo failed?
Japan Box Office Aug 5 – 6 (based on admissions)
- Despicable Me 3 (Week 3)
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid the Movie: True Ending (Week 1)
- Transformers: The Last Knight Week (1)
- Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai (Week 2)
- Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (Week 1)
- Pokemon: Kimi ni Kimeta! (Week 4)
- The Mummy (Week 2)
- Gintama (Week 4)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Week 6)
- Mary and the Witch’s Flower (Week 5)
(via NPN, Eiga ranking, Japan BO numbers)
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