Japan Box Office: 'Zootopia' Passes $42M, Beats Previous Weekend Haul Again

This was the third weekend the Disney animation film improved its box-office take over the previous frame, despite showing on fewer screens.

Zootopia stayed on top of the Japanese box office for the third weekend, taking its cumulative haul past $42 million and beating its previous frame again.

The Byron Howard- and Rich Moore-directed animated film brought in another $4.6 million (?504 million) on Saturday and Sunday, up 2 percent from the previous weekend, despite showing on 348 screens, 25 fewer than last week. Its per-screen average jumped 16.7 percent.

After debuting at No. 2 on April 22 and spending the following weekend in the same position while improving its box-office take, Zootopia climbed to the top of the rankings the weekend after, although its take dropped that frame. Its haul climbed during the two weekends since.

Strong word of mouth, audiences watching both the English and Japanese versions, and 4DX3D screenings, as well as a popular Japanese version of the "Try Everything" song by Dream Ami, have all helped boost Zootopia's numbers. Disney's Frozen, which finished with a massive $250 million in Japan, was propelled by similar factors, though on a larger scale. The Japanese version of "Try Everything" has around 4.5 million hits on YouTube, as compared to 118 million for the local version of Frozen hit "Let it Go."

Zootopia has also been helped by a relatively quiet release schedule after the Golden Week holidays at the beginning of the month.

If Cats Disappeared From the World (Sekai kara Neko ga Kieta nara) climbed to No. 2 with $1.3 million (?141 million), swapping places with samurai comedy The Magnificent Nine (Tono, Risoku de Gozaru!), which took $1.2 million (?135 million) on 308 screens. The samurai film beat If Cats Disappeared in admissions, leaving the two films in the same places as last weekend in terms of local rankings, which go by number of tickets sold rather than revenue.

Local anime Detective Conan The Darkest Nightmare held on to the No. 4 spot during its sixth weekend.

Police drama 64 (Rokuyon) fell one place to No. 6, while Captain America: Civil War dropped one place to No. 7 during its fourth weekend in theaters.

Next weekend will see the Japanese releases of The Huntsman: Winter's War and Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next.