Earns 30 million yuan in pre-sales, 70 million yuan on 1st day

Makoto Shinkai's your name anime film is poised to rank #1 at this weekend's box office in China, after high ticket pre-sales and a substantial opening day. According to Chinese media, the film sold 30 million yuan (about 450 million yen or US$4.4 million) in pre-sale tickets as of Friday. The film opened in as many as 7,000 theaters in China on Friday, and sold 2.77 million tickets for 70 million yuan (1.2 billion yen or US$10.9 million) on 66,000 screenings on its first day.

Last weekend's #1 movie in China, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, dropped to #2 on Friday with the equivalent of US$3.31 million on 28,000 screenings. After 8 days, it now has the equivalent of US$60.4 million.

Shinkai personally came to Beijing to promote his film last month.

In Japan, your name. has earned 19,492,000,000 yen (about US$174 million) as of last Sunday, surpassing the 19.3 billion yen earnings of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke anime film. The film has also sold 14,986,000 tickets. The film ranked at #2 in its 14th weekend, losing the top spot to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , which debuted at #1 during the November 26-27 weekend.

your name. is now the the sixth highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, the third highest-grossing Japanese film in Japan, and the third highest-grossing anime film in Japan. The two highest-grossing Japanese films in Japan include Spirited Away (30.8 billion yen) and Howl's Moving Castle (19.6 billion yen). Shinkai's your name. is projected to possibly approach 20 billion yen (US$200 million).

Shinkai's latest film had topped the Japanese charts for nine straight weekends since it opened on August 26, and in its 10th weekend dropped to #2 to Death Note Light up the NEW world, before regaining the top spot in its 11th weekend, and it stayed at the top spot in its 12th and 13th weekends.

Sources: TV Asahi, Variety, The Japan Times