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Article: Where the wind blows: Japanese films have long lost their hold on the local box office. Asia Image examines the reasons why, and reviews how and why local movie studios are surviving, many profitably, and where the industry is headed from here.(analysis: film production)
- Article from:
- Asia Image
- Article date:
- November 1, 2004
- Author:
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The number of Japanese moviegoers recovered to over 162 million in 2003, up 1 per cent from a year ago and nearly 40 per cent from the lowest recorded number in 1996 at 119 million, but still only a sixth of the record of 1 billion moviegoers reached in 1960.
Total box office revenue in 2003 moved up 3.3 per cent to 203 billion [yen] (US$1.8 billion), of which locally made films and anime accounted for 26 per cent or [yen] 67 billion (US$614 million).
Japan's three major movie studios --Shochiku, Toho, and Toei--turned out consolidated sales increases of 2.2 per cent, 4.2 per cent, and 5 per cent respectively in 2003. The number of movie screens in the ...