Millennium director

While Wu Yuan was busy calming his wife's little emotions, the release of "The Monkey King" in China and even in Asia was still in full swing.

As a thorough commercial blockbuster, although it cannot enter the European and American markets, the IP of "Journey to the West" is still very popular in the Greater China cultural circle.

Especially in Japan and Southeast Asia.

In Japan, "Journey to the West" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" are considered to be the most well-known Chinese classic novels. Since the 1970s and 1980s, there have been a large number of film and television works and game works adapted from these two novels, and the influence of the latter is even higher than the former.

However, the influence of "Journey to the West" cannot be considered low, thanks to "Dragon Ball".

Although "Dragon Ball" only borrowed the character settings, monsters and mythological elements of "Journey to the West" before the Saiyan chapter, as a Japanese national level and even a hot-blooded comic with top global influence, the success of "Dragon Ball" undoubtedly made "Journey to the West" more well-known in Japan.

Even in Europe and America, the success of Dragon Ball has made many blond and blue-eyed white foreigners know the story of Journey to the West, at least they all know the Monkey King Sun Wukong.

This is also the reason why Black Goku was able to arouse a relatively enthusiastic response overseas. On the one hand, the game CG video is indeed well made, and on the other hand, this IP is really not unfamiliar to foreigners, and can even be said to be very familiar.

So when the Monkey King, which took advantage of the popularity of Journey to the West, was released in Asia, the market immediately gave a very good response.

The influence of Wu Yuan + Journey to the West is not inferior to the combination of Wu Yuan + Hollywood blockbusters!

For the Monkey King released in Japan, the distributor invited Akira Toriyama, the original comic author of Dragon Ball, to help draw a promotional poster and signed it, which was considered a strong support for the movie.

Thanks to this, the initial box office of Monkey King in Japan broke 500 million yen, and the final box office is expected to reach about 3 billion.

It seems that the box office performance is much worse than that of "Your Name", and even inferior to "Departures".

But the Japanese film market is no longer the same as before.

There are 8 animated films in the top 20 Japanese box office in 2018, and there is also an animated live-action theater version "Gintama 2".

Animated films occupy four seats in the top ten box office: "Detective Conan: Zero's Enforcer", "Doraemon: Nobita's Treasure Island", "Coco", and "Incredibles 2" ranked 2nd, 7th, 8th, and 9th respectively.

Japan is the source of ACG culture and a region where the ACG industry is extremely mature.

The strong ACG atmosphere makes it common for Japanese people to go to the cinema to watch animated films.

Animated films, like love movies, science fiction movies, and action movies, are all movie categories that Japanese people often choose when watching movies.

Therefore, in Japan, animated films have more audiences and can create better box office results.

The current Japanese film market has completely fallen into the hands of animated films. Almost all the films that can break the 5 billion box office are theatrical versions of various anime and some theatrical versions of special effects films.

In terms of live-action films, Japan's box office market has been very sluggish, and even has to rely on live-action adaptations of comics to support the scene.

A truly pure original live-action film can be considered very successful if it can achieve a box office of 2 billion in Japan.

Even the Marvel series of films that have been successful worldwide have repeatedly failed in Japan. The highest box office record in Marvel's history in Japan, "Avengers 4", only achieved a box office of more than 4 billion yen.

However, "Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire", which was released in the same year, got a box office of 7.9 billion yuan.

It can be seen how serious the current situation of the monopoly of Japanese animated theatrical versions is.

Even "Dragon Ball", which has gained popularity from "The Monkey King", has a box office performance similar to that of "The Monkey King" in the theatrical version that has been re-produced in recent years.

The initial box office of "Dragon Ball Z: Gods and Gods" released in 2013 was 680 million yen, and the final box office was 2.99 billion yen.

The initial box office of "Resurrection of F" released in 2015 was 960 million yen, and the final box office was 3.74 billion yen.

The initial box office of "Dragon Ball Super: Broly" released in 2018 was 1.05 billion yen, and the final box office was 4 billion yen.

The initial box office of "Monkey King" was 500 million yen, which is already a very good result. After all, in Japan, "Monkey King" can't be better than "Dragon Ball"!

And the expected box office of about 3 billion is already a very good box office result in Japan, at least it is popular all over the country, but it has not reached the level of a phenomenal hit.

And "Monkey King" is not only released in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries are also mature markets that the light and shadow era has developed for many years.

And because "The Monkey King" is Wu Yuan's film, countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines have also actively introduced this film. After all, Wu Yuan still has some influence in these countries.

Not to mention anything else, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and later "Interstellar", "The Martian", "Doctor Strange" and other movies have a lot of influence in these countries. It can be said that a large number of young people in these countries grew up watching Wu Yuan's movies.

Although they rarely watch Chinese films, they are very willing to watch a Chinese film directed by Wu Yuan. "Ready Player One" was also released in these countries before and achieved a pretty good box office result, so this time the distributors in these countries are more active in introducing "The Monkey King".

When it came to the end of January 2019, "The Monkey King" had basically been released on a large scale in all countries in East Asia, and received a total of nearly 100 million US dollars in overseas box office!

Among the non-Hollywood films, "The Monkey King" should be the only film this year that can get 100 million US dollars in overseas box office outside the local market. It is the only seedling under the firm rule of Hollywood in the world film market.

Even Japanese films with a lot of globally popular comic IPs have not achieved such a good result this year.

Apart from American movies, only Japanese movies can achieve a box office of more than 100 million US dollars in overseas markets outside the domestic market, and only Japanese anime movies can do this.

Well, the Chinese market contributed most of the overseas box office.

And "The Monkey King" is the only movie this year that can get a box office of more than 100 million US dollars in overseas markets.

The last movie that achieved this result, sorry, was still Wu Yuan's movie, "Ready Player One" that conquered Asia and South America!

After nearly two years, Wu Yuan once again brought a Chinese blockbuster and returned to the eyes of Asian movie fans, taking a lot of movie tickets from their pockets! (End of this chapter)