director of the millennium

The Japanese film market has basically not changed much over the years.

When Wu Yuan's "Your Name" was released in Japan, there were more than 3000 cinemas and more than screens in the country.

Now, more than a decade later, the number of cinemas in Japan remains at 581, and the number of screens is 3634.

In comparison, when "Your Name" was released, there were only one or two thousand cinemas in China, but now there are more than 3 cinemas in China and the number of screens has exceeded !

However, don’t think that the Japanese market is not worth mentioning just because there is a big gap in the number of cinemas and screens between the two.

As an old developed country, it is normal that the number of cinemas and screens in Japan has remained stable for many years. The number of screens in Europe as a whole has not increased much in the past decade, simply because the number of cinemas is saturated.

In 2016, Japan maintained its position as the world's third largest film market. Although it was surpassed by mainland China, the Japanese film market is still very large.

Japan's box office revenue for the whole year of 2015 was 2171 billion yen (about 1900 billion yuan). Although it is only a quarter of the Chinese market, we have to take into account that Japan's population is less than one-tenth of China's!

In 2015, the number of moviegoers in Japan reached 1 million. If this number is averaged, it means that every Japanese watched at least one movie last year.

Of course, the average is unrealistic. In fact, there should be a large number of movie fans in Japan who watch movies at least 5-8 times a year, which is why there is such a high number of mobilization.

In other words, the Japanese film market is already a very mature market and the most important film market in Asia.

But unfortunately, except for "Your Name", most of Wu Yuan's previous films only performed at a mid-range level at the box office in Japan.

His Hollywood movies are better, able to achieve a box office of 30-50 billion yen in Japan, and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series can even break 200 billion yen. But his Chinese-language films, except for "Your Name" which created a miracle of 20 billion yen, the box office of other movies are around billion yen.

Perhaps this box office would have been very good for a Chinese-language film ten years ago. After all, the Japanese yen exchange rate was high ten years ago, and the mainland film market was small. A box office of 20 billion yen would even be higher and better than the domestic box office.

But it’s different now. Now the box office of 20 billion yen is only equivalent to 1 million yuan, and it has to be shared with local distributors, so the total revenue is only to million yuan, which is not very important for the domestic market.

It is impossible to say that Wu Yuan does not feel it is a pity. After all, he has always regarded the Asian market as his own private territory and has been working tirelessly to develop the Asian market for ten years.

Japan is his top priority. So far, seven or eight of his films have been introduced to the Japanese market and released. Wu Yuan is also one of the most famous foreign directors in Japan.

But since "Your Name", his films have never made any major breakthroughs in Japan.

until
The emergence of "Ready Player One"!

As we all know, the Japanese film market is not very interested in Hollywood superhero movies. No matter whether it is DC or Marvel, their movies are very successful overseas, but they have always received mediocre response in Japan. There are many reasons for this, the most important of which is that Japan has its own hot-blooded youth comics, as well as special effects dramas such as "Kamen Rider" and "Ultraman". They have their own "hero" culture, and there is really no need to flatter Hollywood superheroes.

Hot-blooded comic movies such as "One Piece" and "Naruto", as well as special effects heroes in "Kamen Rider" and "Ultraman" are exciting enough and are more in line with the preferences of Japanese movie fans.

However, this does not mean that Japanese movie fans don't like watching science fiction movies.

Although the market acceptance of science fiction movies in Japan is only average, there are some science fiction movies that perform very well at the box office in Japan, such as "Inception"!
As long as the subject matter and the story itself are attractive, Japanese movie fans are quite receptive to it.

The movie "Ready Player One", from the content to the storyline, is very appealing to Japanese movie fans!

First of all, the plot of this movie itself is a very Japanese-style "adventure journey of several high school students". The oldest of the protagonists is only 18 years old, and the youngest is only 11 years old.

Secondly, Japan is not unfamiliar with such virtual world themes. The Sword Art Online, which is very famous throughout Asia, is a work of similar theme. It is also an adventure in the virtual world and is highly accepted by Japanese movie fans.

At the end of the movie, the protagonist calls on all players on the server to rebel together, and then everyone comes to the battlefield to support the protagonist. This scene is also very "hot-blooded", very consistent with Japanese aesthetics, and also has the meaning of "the lower class overthrowing the upper class", after all, the villain in the play is the "boss".

Most importantly, a lot of Japanese pop culture is incorporated into Ready Player One, mainly the culture of anime, movies, and special effects dramas. In the final battle, not only do some players drive Gundams to support, but some also take out transformation devices and transform into Ultraman and Kamen Rider on the spot.
It can be said that both the storyline and the various Japanese cultural Easter eggs are very much to the taste of Japanese movie fans. It can even be said that this movie can be considered a local Japanese movie.

There was no other way, Wu Yuan just went with the flow. After all, in the past two or three decades, Japanese anime and special effects films have been a very dazzling part of Asian popular culture. Most Chinese people also grew up watching Japanese anime, comics and special effects dramas when they were young.

At least this is the case for those born in the 80s and 90s, and this group of people is exactly the main audience group of "Ready Player One". Wu Yuan naturally had to take them into consideration and incorporated many Japanese anime and special effects drama easter egg elements into the movie.

As a result, as soon as "Ready Player One" was released in Japan, it attracted a large number of viewers, and then the film quickly broke the circle in Japan.

What happened in China happened again in Japan. After watching the movie, a large number of Japanese netizens shared the Easter eggs they found on the Internet, then looked at what others found, and then went to the cinema to try to confirm and find more Easter eggs.

As I said before, the film screening in Japan is not like that in China, where a movie can only be screened for one month. As long as there is box office revenue, a Japanese movie can be screened for half a year.

If Japanese movie fans like a movie, they will watch it again more frequently. The most exaggerated case is that some Japanese movie fans will go to the cinema and watch a movie more than ten times.

The reason why "Your Name" had a box office of 200 billion yen was because a large number of fans watched it more than a dozen times during the six-month screening period, which created such a high box office.

After many years, Wu Yuan finally brought another Chinese-language movie that Japanese movie fans are willing to go to the cinema to watch countless times!
"Ready Player One" conquers the Japanese film market again! (End of this chapter)