Landmark Indie 'Earth' Tops Japanese Box Office

BBC Worldwide and Greenlight Media's 'Earth' has taken the number one spot at the Japanese Box Office on its opening weekend, beating Will Smith's 'I am Legend'.
Despite being in almost half the number of cinemas around the country, the natural history feature, based upon the BBC's acclaimed Planet Earth series, was over US$400,000 up on the Hollywood blockbuster.
Earth is likely to outshine the success in Japan of its natural history predecessor, Deep Blue, also produced by BBC Worldwide and Greenlight Media.
When it was released in Japan in 2004, Deep Blue became the highest grossing European independent film in Japanese cinema ever, generating revenues in excess of 1bn Yen.
Only three days into its run, Earth had already generated 568m Yen. Commenting on the results, earth's UK producer, Alix Tidmarsh, said: "These are fantastic results and we're delighted that the movie has gone down so well.
"It's not only a real tribute to the breathtaking cinematography of earth, but to the hard work employed by Gaga Communications in giving it such an outstanding start."
German producer of Earth, Sophokles Tasioulis added: "I am absolutely thrilled to see that the hard work of so many people and the many years invested in the movie has come into fruition in this way. We always had high hopes for earth in Japan, but this has by far exceeded our wildest expectations."
Earth takes audiences on an unforgettable journey around the planet, using the sun as guide and the natural history of the planet to show its effects on all of life.
The movie offers audiences a chance to recognise and celebrate the beauty of the earth, but is also a reminder of the ecological fragility of our planet and the creatures that live on it.
The success of Earth in Japan reflects the movies success in Europe. When it opened in France, Earth, beat Brad Pitt's Assassination of Jesse James to become a box office number one, became one of the top 3 films at the French box office in 2007 and received the much-coveted audience approval stamp, the 'coup de foudre'.
In Spain, Earth had the best opening of a nature documentary ever and outperformed nature titles Deep Blue, Microcosmos and Genesis at the box office.
(DS)