The thing is, though, all the other new releases debuted out of the Top 3... my inclination would be to think that Tron and Shrek basically just flopped on their own merits. (Shrek is understandable since it's a 6-month-old movie based on a stagnating franchise. Tron is a little more surprising.) Harry Potter hemorrhaged in its second weekend in the US (as those sorts of front-loaded Blockbusters tend to do), so I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar thing happen to it in Japan.
Looking at last year's rankings at this time, it looks like the only reason 2010 didn't take the #1 spot is because it debuted against the One Piece movie. (It did rank above Up, which was in its second week, but was also a 6-month-old release by that time).
A to Z looks to have done pretty badly, debuting in 3rd beneath two movies already in theaters. The movies were the most recent Ghibli and Toy Story 3, though, so read into it what you will.
It's definitely something that would be interesting to see the actual grosses for.
I would say A to Z did pretty well in the long run, it ended its run with $16,704,506 and actually managed to rise from 8th to 6th in its 4th weekend. Unless you're just talking about opening weekends, then totally disregard this post!
And even though those movies might be six months older, it's still their first wide release in Japan for a lot of them, isn't it? I would think that might count for something in what's expected of it.
I am being somewhat serious. I think it's genuinely destructive to tell fans that they should be happy if their fan-thing makes money and that they shouldn't question that feeling. It's a mindset that will cause more grief in the long run than anything else.
The flipside of celebrating when your thing makes a lot of money is that when it doesn't make a lot of money... you know, how should fans act them? Typically they go into ludicrous hand-wringing and act all miserable, often for no real reason. Remember people freaking out when Ultra Galaxy Legends "appeared" to be doing poorly in theaters last year?
Except it wasn't doing badly, it's that people didn't understand how to read Japanese box office charts. It actually did perfectly well and got a sequel that will also probably do perfectly well. Likewise, here we don't know if W and/or OOO are super-popular or if it was just a slow week at the Japanese box office.
We'll need more numbers to determine that, as you rightfully point out. We know we have a #1 but without gross and total number of theaters, we don't know if it's a meaningful #1. It's perfectly possible for movies to take a #1 box office position and then be considered unsuccessful based on performance in successive weeks.
Now, I don't think it's likely at all that Movie Taisen 2011 will be unsuccessful, but this is the sort of movie where success is really all but guaranteed. Japan consistently loves Kamen Rider movies, even badly-reviewed movies and movies from poorly-regarded sub-brands end up doing well enough. At this point I think it would take a multi-year string of really bad/unappealing KR films to break that winning streak.
I haven't really seen anyone really get on other people for acting that way...well, aside from nere, but I think that was probably just a bought of annoyance she might have been going through.
Though about that Ultra Galaxy thing...wasn't that just that one really annoying guy who tried to push Ultraman down everyone's throat? Seems like he was more the exception than the norm. (though I will say that I totally forgot Zero comes out this week and not last, so I was freaking when I didn't see it in the top ten)
I think most people are just happy when it happens to do well and a little bummed when it doesn't, but there are always those few who are just a little...y'know. Obnoxious.
But, yeah, shall wait for the actuals to come in. I know very well how meaningless a number one can be, saw that firsthand when AAA managed to grab a number one hit in Japan...only for it to have it be the lowest selling number one ever.
