The Guide to Japanese Film Industry & Co -Production - UNIJAPAN

Chapter 1
Japan’s Film Industry Overview of the Japanese Box-office for Year 2008
Overview of the Japanese Box-office for Year 2008
1. Japanese Films Exceed Imported Films
By Kakeo Yoshio, Executive Director, Kinema Junpo Film Institute
1) Attendance
Although the Japanese film industry appears to be stable over the past
decade, with both attendance and box-office receipts hovering with only
slight ups or downs, it is actually entering difficult times as it can be seen in
the continuing decline of attendance per-screen.
In 2008, film attendance fell by 2.7 million in 2008, from 163.19
million in 2007 to 160.49 million, or a slight drop to 98.34%. Box-office
receipts also marked a similar small drop to 98.18%, falling by ¥3.607
billion from ¥198.443 billion to ¥194.836 billion.
Meanwhile, the number of screens increased by 138 from 3,221 in 2007
to 3,359 in 2008. Multiplex cinemas increased to 2,659 screens, accounting
for 79% of the total number of screens, up from 76% in 2007.
Per-screen audience declined by 2,886 from 50,665 in 2007 to 47,779
(94.30%), since attendance dropped while the number of screens increased.
Likewise, per-screen box-office takings fell ¥3,604,961 from ¥61,609,128 in
2007 to ¥58,004,167 in 2008 (94.14%).
2) Films released
In 2008, 418 Japanese films and 388 imported films were released totaling
806 films. This was a four-film-drop from 810 in 2007, among which 407
were Japanese and 403 were imported films. These numbers show also that
in 2008 box-office receipts of Japanese films exceeded those of imported
films by a large margin.
While in 2006, the share of Japanese films overtook that of imported
films for the first time in 21 years, the margin was still small at 53% for
Japanese films. In 2007, imported films recovered their share, albeit by
a small margin, at 52%. In 2008, however, Japanese films overwhelmed
imported films with a share of 59.46%.
Although this was a welcome development for the Japanese film
industry, a small decline in overall audience numbers showed that a large
number of the audience for imported films simply shifted to Japanese
films. In other words, it justified that the future market will not expand
unless both Japanese film and imported film attendance increases.
2. Further Polarization between Majors and Independents
1) Box-office draws
In 2006 when the share of Japanese films first overtook imported films,
three films produced locally by Warner Entertainment Japan earned more
than ¥10 billion in combined box-office takings. Likewise, both Asmik Ace
Entertainment and Cine Qua Non had three titles with box-office takings
of over ¥1 billion.
In 2008, however, there were only two films with box-office takings
of more than ¥1 billion released by non-big three makers—L change
the WorLd by Warner (¥3.1 billion) and Climber’s High by Toei=Gaga
Communications (¥1.18 billion).
The situation was the same for imported films, with the gap
widening between major producers and independents. Financially weak
independents find themselves in far more difficult conditions than major
producers in terms of both planning and development costs and selection
of plans.
In other words, most big box-office draws came from major producers,
with independents becoming less likely to come up with blockbuster hits.
Several intertwined factors are behind this development:
(1) Multiplex cinemas, which now account for 80% of the total
number of screens, are biased toward showing big-hit films;
(2) The dwindling secondary-use market makes it difficult to recover
production costs of Japanese films and purchase costs of imported
films, pushing financially fragile independents into dire straits;
(3) Tastes of audiences are changing: While older movie-goers enjoy
diversified film cultures, younger film fans tend to favor largebudget
Japanese films; and
(4) Planning abilities of independents are waning.
2) Major producers show growth
Major producers joined hands with TV networks to take advantage of
their strong information-transmitting capabilities to boost the visibility
of films they make and thus put on the market such blockbuster hits as
BOYS OVER FLOWERS the movie (Hana yori dango final) (¥7.75 billion/
TBS), Suspect X (Yogisha X no kenshin) (¥4.92 billion/Fuji Television) and
Partners: The Movie (Aibo —gekijoban—) (¥4.44 billion, TV Asahi). At
the same time, they broadened their scope to take up more serious themes,
including Departures (Okuribito) (¥3 billion/TBS), I’d Rather Be a Shellfish
(Watashi wa kai ni naritai) (2009/TBS) and Nobody to Watch over Me (Dare
mo mamotte kurenai) (2008/Fuji Television).
Another noteworthy development was the box-office draw of Detroit
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