A silver giant from The Land of Light struck down the boy detective. The Shinji Higuchi (Attack on Titan live-action films, Shin Godzilla)-directed all-new live-action film Shin Ultraman, one of the most anticipated Japanese film of the year, was finally released in 362 theaters across Japan on May 13, 2022, then earned an impressive 730 million yen (5.65 million USD) on 450,000 admissions on its first Saturday and Sunday, easily becoming the No.1 film of the weekend.
RELATED: Anno and Higuchi’s Shin Ultraman Stomps Shin Godzilla in Its 1st 3 Days at JP Box Office
The reboot film based on Tsuburaya Productions’ first Ultraman TV series in 1966 was originally set to be released in the early summer of 2021, but has been postponed for a year to May 13, 2022, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the first three days of its release, the 113-minute film attracted 640,000 moviegoers and grossed over 993 million yen (7.68 million USD). Compared to the three-day total gross of Higuchi’s previous film Shin Godzilla in 2016, it drew 113.5 percent of moviegoers and 117.2 percent of box office gross.
Only in the first three days, Shin Ultraman has already become the most successful film in the 56-year-old Ultraman franchise, surpassing the 2008 film Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers‘ total gross of 838 million yen (6.48 million USD). At Tsuburaya Fields Holdings’ 2020 financial results meeting, Tsuburaya expected box-office gross in the 8-10 billion yen.
Meanwhile, the film based on a screenplay by Hideaki Anno has received mixed reviews. It ranked fourth in Filmarks’ first day satisfaction ranking with an average rating of 3.81/5.0 based on 11,244 reviews.
Coming in second is Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween, which earned 300 million yen (2.32 million USD) on 207,000 admissions in its fifth weekend and finally lost its No.1 spot after dominating four consecutive weekends. Its total box office gross has reached 7.5 billion yen (58 million USD) on 5.41 million admissions. It needs 150 million yen to become the third top-grossing film in the Detective Conan anime franchise by surpassing the previous 24th film, The Scarlet Bullet (2021 / 7.65 billion yen).
After the worldwide streaming on Netflix on April 28, Tetsuro Araki’s (Attack on Titan) original anime feature film Bubble was also released in 338 Japanese theaters on May 13 and made its ninth place debut with an estimated 55 million yen (425,610 USD). It ranked seventh in Filmarks’ first day satisfaction ranking with an average rating of 3.07/5.0 based on 1,044 reviews.
Weekend box office Top 10 in Japan (May 14-15, 2022)
(ticket sales basis)
1 (new). “Shin Ultraman” – 993 million yen
2 (1). “Detective Conan: The Bride of Halloween” – 7.5 billion yen
3 (2). “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” – 1.6 billion yen
4 (3). “Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Mononoke Ninja Chinpuden” – 1.47 billion yen
5 (new). “Rurou no Tsuki” – 132 million yen
6 (5). “Shi ni Itaru Yamai”
7 (4) “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” – 4.23 billion yen
8 (6). “Radiation House The Movie”
9 (new). “Bubble” – 55 million yen
10 (8). “Free! the Final Stroke Second Volume”
“Shin Ultraman” trailer:
“Bubble” trailer:
RELATED: Japan Box Office: Detective Conan Beats Doctor Strange Even in Its 4th Weekend
Sources: Eiga.com, Pixiin, Filmarks
©Tsuburaya Productions ©2021 “Shin Ultraman” Production Committee
©2022 “Bubble” Production Committee
