Frozen heats up 2014 Japan box office
japanese cinemas rang up a healthy rise in ticket sales in 2014 as block- buster animation film Frozen eclipsed an otherwise lackluster show by Holly-wood industry data showed on Tuesday
the box office rose 6.6% last year to 207 billion yen 57 billion baht the highest since the 2010 record of 220 billion yen the Motion picture producers Association of Japan said .
Walt Disney is Frozen- known in Japan as Anna And The Snow Queen-took in 25.5 billion yen alone becoming the third-biggest movie of all time in Japan and accounting for more than 10% of the overall box office still imported films made up about 42% of last year is receipts lagging local fare for a seventh straight year and staying well below a peak of 73% in 2002
once-dominant Hollywood has strug-gled in recent years as audiences shun many US superhero and other franchises that carry lower name recognition in Japan.
Rounding out the top three foreign films last year were Disney is Maleficent starring Angelina Jolie and Sandra Bullock is gravity distributed by Warner Bros
Animated films look set to continue their domination this year
Disney is Big Hero 6,which premiered at the Tokyo international film Festival,and ToHo is Yo-kai Watch have so far touched about 2 billion baht each in cumulative ticket sales,according to box office tracker Kogyo Tsushinsha
sony pictures musical Annie opened at a solid No 2 over the weekend between holdovers Big Hero 6 and Yo-kai Watch
Warner Bros is a unit of Time Warner and Sony pictures is a division of Sony corp .REUTERS