Big in Japan: premieres hot new ticket in Tokyo

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-05-29 08:53

Hollywood actors Johnny Depp (L) and Orlando Bloom pose during a photocall to promote their new movie 'Pirates of the Caribbean : At World's End' in Tokyo May 23, 2007.[Reuters]

Move over Hollywood. The star-studded, red-carpet premiere was once the almost exclusive property of Tinseltown. But now Tokyo is grabbing the limelight.

The fifth Harry Potter film, "The Order of the Phoenix," will be out in Japan ahead of other markets, with Warner Bros. officials confirming that Daniel Radcliffe and other key cast members will fly in to Tokyo when it makes its debut here June 28 -- ahead of the glitzy July 3 event scheduled for London.

"Spider-Man 3" got the trend off the ground with a spectacular launch in Tokyo on April 16, while the third installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise -- "At World's End" -- made its Asian splash here May 23.

Japanese filmgoers might have been treated to a third premiere in short order had delays in postproduction not apparently scuppered plans for a mid-June premiere here for the Bruce Willis starrer "Live Free or Die Hard."

"Japan has always been the biggest territory outside North America, and the final box office figures in Japan have sometimes outgrossed the U.S. take," said Noriyuki Sano, head of the publicity division at Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan. "But there are other considerations, not least the fact that there is less piracy here than in other countries, which makes companies more lenient about releasing titles here first."

There have been other film premieres in Japan, including Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds," Sano pointed out, but none of them were on the scale of "Spider-Man 3."

It became the fastest movie to hit the YEN3 billion mark ($24.7 million), reaching that figure in just six days, and more than 4 million people had seen it in its first 20 days of release.

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun Fat and Jerry Bruckheimer were on hand at Tokyo's Budokan Hall for the Asian premiere of "At World's End." Kenji Nakamura, Disney's executive director of marketing in Japan, said, "Japan is the only country where we could have a premiere as well as the U.S."

"Japan accounts for between 10% and 15% of total global sales of a movie, so it's a huge market for us," Nakamura said. "That is the main reason why the Hollywood studios put priority on their presence here and send the stars."