Stays in top 5 for 2 straight weekends in Thailand, Taiwan

The anime Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale opened in Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, and Mexico over the past three weeks, and ranked in the top 10 at the box office in all four countries.

The film opened in Thailand on February 23, and it ranked #4 in its first weekend. It dipped to #5 in its second weekend.

The film also opened in South Korea on February 23, and ranked #10 for the weekend.

The film then opened in Taiwan on February 24, and landed at #3 for the Friday-Sunday frame. It stayed at #3 for a second weekend.

The film's first opening outside Asia was in Mexico on March 4. Contenido Cinépolis and KEM Media distributed it in 90 theaters nationwide, and it garnered over 3.65 million pesos (about 21 million yen or US$186,000) for the #9 spot that weekend. It was the third film from Contenido Cinépolis and KEM Media to enter the top 10 rankings, after Boruto: Naruto the Movie and The Last: Naruto the Movie.

In Japan, the film opened during the February 18-19 weekend at #1, then dropped to #2 in its second weekend and then to #3 in its third weekend. As of last Monday, it has sold a cummulative total of 1,012,331 tickets for 1,370,738,380 yen (about US$12.03 million).

The film is the first anime film to rank #1 in both weekend attendance and weekend box office receipt totals in Japan since Makoto Shinkai's your name. The film also set the opening-weekend record among films distributed by Aniplex. The Eiga.com website reported that the final box office tally of the film could eventually surpass 2.5 billion yen (US$22 million).

Aniplex of America and Eleven Arts opened the film in the United States on March 9 after a Hollywood premiere on March 1. The film will then open in Canada on March 17.

Source: Animation Buisness Journal (Tadashi Sudo)