Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale hit Japanese movie theaters this weekend and instantly managed to place itself firmly in the top 10 Japanese anime-based movies list. In fact, with collections rapidly approaching $4 million, the SAO animated movie easily obliterated its competition to take the weekend’s top spot.
Sword Art Online, an immensely popular Japanese anime, had its latest movie released in Japan. Although the cinematic premiere of Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale will take place in American theaters about three weeks from today, the box office collections in Japan is an ample indicator of the movie’s immense success. Incidentally, the latest SAO movie is premiering in North American theaters on March 9.
Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale opened over the weekend and managed to sell more than 305,000 tickets in Japan, collectively earning more than 400,000 Yen (about $3.76 million). Incidentally, the film released outside Japan too, but it has done well in Japanese theaters, averaging close to three million Yen per cinema hall. There were some rumors about the hype that surrounded the movie being a tad too much, but according to the reactions recorded by Japanese magazine PIA , almost every moviegoer is extremely satisfied. Statistically speaking, PIA’s premiere satisfaction survey pegs the SAO movie at the number one spot with 92 points. Needless to add, very few movies have been able to garner such a high score.
A total of 150 theaters abroad are currently screening the SAO movie. Interestingly, Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale is the first anime film since Your Name debuted to be number one in both weekend attendance and overall weekend box office earnings.
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According to Crunchyroll , Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale, which is based on Reki Kawahara’s sci-fi action light novel series, managed to earn 425,762,760 yen from 308,376 tickets that were sold in its first two days alone . The performance of the movie not only makes it a top-grossing film for the week, but it also accorded the best opening weekend box office record for the film’s distributor Aniplex. Regional experts are expecting the movie to do well, and are estimating earnings upwards of 2.5 billion yen in Japan alone. Given the film’s phenomenal opening and the heightened anticipation overseas, the late SAO movie is expected to do even well in the international markets.
Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale is an anime-based film about players of a hit game whose Augmented Reality technology blurs the lines between the digital and real worlds. The movie is set in the year 2026 when Virtual Reality (VR) gaming is the norm. However, to beat the prevalent and dominating VR gaming technology NerveGear and its successor Amusphere, Professor Shigemura invents a new gaming platform that is based on Augmented Reality technology which allows players to remain conscious throughout their gaming experience. “Ordinal Scale” is the most popular game on the platform. Asuna and others are actively engaged in the game when they realize everything isn’t as safe as it was promised, forcing Kirito to intervene.
Supported with an entirely new storyline that’s written specifically for the movie, Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale could earn more than $25 million , reported Big News Network .
[Featured Image by Reki Kawahara/ Sword Art Online ]
