Arts & Entertainment
Japan movie box-office revenues plunge 17.9% in 2011
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Movie box-office revenues in Japan last year plunged 17.9 percent from an all-time high in the previous year to 181.2 billion yen due to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, a film industry body said Thursday.
The number of movies released in Japan came to 799, up 80 from the previous year, but there was no blockbuster, the association said, adding that the number of viewers also dropped by 30 million to 145 million, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan said.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" achieved top revenues at 9.67 billion yen.
Among Japanese films, Studio Ghibli's animation "Kokurikozaka kara" (From Up on Poppy Hill) was the biggest hit with 4.46 billion yen in revenues. There was no Japanese film achieving more than 5 billion yen in revenues for the first time in 11 years.
Japanese films accounted for 54.9 percent of total box-office revenues, outdoing foreign movies for the fourth consecutive year.
The number of movie screens in Japan came to 3,339, a drop of 73 including 40 affected by the disaster and declining for the first time in 18 years, the association said.
"The film business environment was severe under the impact of the disaster," the association's chairman, Nobuyoshi Otani, told a news conference. "Unless top priority is given to the quality of films, it may be difficult to increase the number of movie viewers."
(Mainichi Japan) January 27, 2012
