Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” landed at the Japanese box office in the number one slot. With Warner distributing on 444 screens, the WWII epic earned $2.98 million on 220,000 admissions for the Sept. 9-10 weekend. This was 68% better than the opening frame for the 2014 Nolan film “Interstellar,” which finished with $11.5 million in Japan. “Dunkirk” is expected to end its run near the $20 million mark.
Opening at number two was the Hirokazu Kore-eda legal drama “The Third Murder.” Co-released by Toho and Gaga on 314 screens, the film made $2.14 million. This was about 75% of the first weekend score of Koree-eda’s family drama “Like Father, Like Son,” which earned a total of $29 million in 2013.
Despite leaving the Venice film festival without a prize, the film is expected to finish around the $15 million mark.
Meanwhile, the Masato Harada samurai war epic “Sekigahara” slipped from the number two to number three slot, while driving its cumulative total to $13.7 million. In fourth, “Despicable Me 3” cemented its position as the top film of the Japanese summer with a total of $62.5 million on for distributor Toho-Towa.
