Leading the box office charge for the start of the Japanese school summer holiday season was the 20th installment in the Pocket Monsters anime series. Titled “Gekijoban Pocket Monsters: Kimi ni Kimeta!,” the film opened atop the chart for the July 15-16 weekend with $4.6 million on 436,000 admissions from 368 screens, with Toho distributing. This was nearly 60% better than the previous series entry, which finished with $19 million in 2016.
Highest ranking among the new foreign chart entries at number four was “Cars 3.” Distributed by Disney, the film made $2.86 million in its opening frame. This was almost 30% less than “Cars 2,” which recorded a total of $27 million in 2011. The film is forecast to finish its first run near the $20 million milestone.
Last weekend’s number one, Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” fell to number three with a 17-day cumulative total of $37 million.
