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Frozen Home Video Tops Evangelion, Spirited Away's All-Time Records With 1.5 Million in Japan
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Disney's Frozen film sold 1,553,505 "MovieNEX" Blu-ray Disc/DVD combo sets in its first week, surpassing the previous Blu-ray Disc record holder, Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance, which sold 357,000 copies in its first week. According to the market survey firm Oricon, the movie also already topped Evangelion: 2.22's cumulative total of 465,000 copies to date.
Frozen is the first title to sell one million copies — DVDs or Blu-ray Discs — in its first week in Japan in 12 years. Spirited Away holds the record for first-week DVD-only sales, when it sold 1.40 million copies in its first week in 2002. Frozen now has the new all-time record — not just for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, but also for all formats including video tapes and LaserDiscs — in the entire 23-year, 8-month history of Oricon's sales ranking charts.
Frozen had already beaten Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo's record of first-day Blu-ray Disc sales. Frozen sold 661,000 Blu-ray Discs on its first day, while Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo had sold 199,000 on its first day.
As of July 19, which marked Frozen's 19th weekend at the box office in Japan, the film's box office earnings have surpassed 25 billion yen (about US$246 million). The feat marks the first time since Spirited Away 13 years ago that a film's box office earnings topped 25 billion yen in Japan. With 19,732,446 tickets sold for 251,005,847,600 yen (US$247 million), the film is now the third highest-grossing film of all time in Japan after Spirited Away and Titanic, the latter of which earned 26.2 billion yen.
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