Topped Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Makoto Shinkai's your name anime film ranked #1 at the box office in China this past weekend with the equivalent of US$41 million.

The film had sold 30 million yuan (about 450 million yen or US$4.4 million) in pre-sale tickets as of Friday. The film then 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. It then earned US$17.4 million more on Saturday. Shinkai personally came to Beijing to promote his film last month.

Shinkai's film pushed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to #2 in its second weekend. The Warner Brothers film earned US$39.7 million in its first weekend, and US$15.5 million in its second weekend (including US$3.31 million in Friday and US$3.3 million in IMAX showings). It now has a cumulative total of US$72.6 million (including US$10.1 million in IMAX showings).

The next highest new film was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which debuted at #3 with US$10.2 million. The next highest animated film was Moana, which added US$5.78 million to its total of $21.8 million in its second weekend.

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.

Shinkai's film 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$176 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.

Source: Variety

Update: Shinkai's film earned the biggest opening weekend of any Japanese animated film in China — topping last year's Stand by Me Doraemon (US$38.5 million). It also earned the biggest opening weekend of any hand-drawn animated film in China — topping this year's Chinese film Big Fish & Begonia (US$34.2 million). Source: Cartoon Brew