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The box office rose 6.6 percent last year to 207 billion yen
($1.75 billion), the highest since the 2010 record of 220
billion yen, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan
said.
Walt Disney's "Frozen" - known in Japan as "Anna and the Snow
Queen" - took in 25.5 billion yen ($216 million) alone, becoming
the third-biggest movie of all time in Japan and accounting for
more than 10 percent of the overall box office.
Still, imported films made up about 42 percent of last year's
receipts, lagging local fare for a seventh straight year and
staying well below a peak of 73 percent in 2002.
Once-dominant Hollywood has struggled in recent years as
audiences shun many U.S. superhero and other franchises that
carry lower name recognition in Japan.
Rounding out the top three foreign films last year were Disney's
"Maleficent" ($55 million) starring Angelina Jolie and Sandra
Bullock's "Gravity" ($27 million) distributed by Warner Bros.
Animated films looks set to continue their domination this year.
Disney's "Big Hero 6," which premiered at the Tokyo
International Film Festival, and Toho's "Yo-kai Watch" have so
far touched about $60 million 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.
(Reporting by Chris Gallagher; Editing by Tony Tharakan and
Jeremy Laurence)
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