"Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution" Box Office Performance, Week One
July 18th, 2019

Dogasu @ 13:20 JST -- The numbers are in and Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution opened as the number two movie in Japan.


Entertainment news site eiga.com reports that the CG remake of 1998's Pocket Monsters The Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back! was shown in 408 screens (despite the 367 number you see in the table below, also provided by eiga.com) and watched by a total of 454,000 people between July 13th and 14th. The film brought in 553,000,000 yen in that same two-day period. That's a 110.6% increase in the first weekend earnings that its predecessor, Pocket Monsters The Movie "Everyone's Story," made in its first weekend last summer.

When you put Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution up against the more recent films you'll see that it had the best opening weekend of any Pokemon movie in Japan in the last half decade:

Year	Movie Title	Dates	Earnings (JPY)
2019	Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution	7/13 - 7/14	553 million
2019	Pokémon: Detective Pikachu	5/4 - 5/5	457 million
2018	Pocket Monsters The Movie "Everyone's Story"	7/14 - 7/15	500 million
2017	Pocket Monsters The Movie "I Choose You!"	7/15 - 7/16	516 million
2016	Pokémon the movie XY&Z "Volcanion and the Tricky Magearna"	7/16 - 7/17	323 million
2015	Pokémon the movie XY "The Archdjinn of the Rings, Hoopa" & "Pikachu and the Pokemon Band"	7/18 - 7/19	384 million

Gee, I wonder why they keep doing these remake films.

First place went to Toy Story 4, which is only just now making its way into Japanese theaters. That movie brought in an astounding 1.38 billion yen, more than double that of what Pokemon was able to earn, so there really was no contest here. Its predecessor was able to stay in the Top 3 of the Japanese box office at least eight weeks in a row back in 2010 so I would expect the new movie to remain on top for a while. Rounding out the Top 3 is the live action Aladdin remake, now in its sixth week in theaters in Japan.

Here's what the rest of the Top Ten look like:

Rank	Last Week	Title	Distributor	No. of Theaters	Weeks in Theaters
1	NEW	Toy Story 4	Disney	369	1
2	NEW	Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution	Toho	367	1
3	1	Aladdin	Disney	370	6
4	2	Spider-Man: Far From Home	Sony Pictures Entertainment	352	3
5	3	Diner	Warner Bros. Movies	336	2
6	4	The Fable	Shochiku	327	4
7	5	Go! Anpanman: Sparkle! Princess Vanilla of the Land of Ice Cream	Tokyo Theatres	233	3
8	6	Uta no ☆ Prince-sama The Movie ♪ Maji Love Kingdom	Shochiku	126	5
9	8	Shimbunkisha (The Newspaper Reporter)	Star Sands Entertainment	143	3
10	9	Free! The Movie - Road to the World - Dream	Shochiku	73	2

Source:  Eiga.com



"Mewtwo Strike Back Evolution" Review
July 17th, 2019

Dogasu @ 00:30 JST -- Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution debuted in theaters this past weekend here in Japan and so I've done what I've been doing the last few years and written up a review. How does this clone compare to the 1998 original? Check out my review to see what I think!