Eleven-year-old Narumi Nakajima couldn't wait. After watching her self-made tape of the trailer for Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone more than 100 times she was about to see the movie itself at a special Tokyo preview.
"I want to see it at least twice more," Narumi said as she waited in line with her mother, Junko. Like many in the throng of 4,500 last week, mother and daughter sported the kind of brightly colored striped mufflers favored by the movie's hero.
Pottermania has hit Japan, and movie theaters and hawkers of Harry Potter products couldn't be happier. In an economy in its fourth recession in a decade, the AOL-Time Warner Inc movie looks like a sure-fire bet to lift sales as well as spirits.
"I don't think the slow Japanese economy should affect the movie's success; when times are a little darker, people need an escape," said David Joyce, a Guzman & Co analyst who rates AOL-Time Warner a "buy." Harry Potter, the story of an orphaned boy who learns magic at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, opens in Japan theaters today. It has set box-office records in the US and probably will do the same in Japan, from all indications.
The best-selling series by J.K. Rowling has sold more than 110 million books worldwide, including 7 million copies of the three titles translated into Japanese. Advance ticket sales for the movie, which opens on more than a quarter of Japan's screens -- the most ever for a film in Japan -- have topped 100,000, AOL-Time Warner says.
"These [advance ticket] numbers are remarkable,'' said William Ireton, managing director at AOL-Time Warner's Warner Brothers Pictures Japan. He predicts Harry Potter will easily top both the opening-weekend and total Japan sales records set this year by the animated film Spirited Away. Spirited Away had opening-weekend revenue of ?1 billion (US$8.1 million) and ?27 billion in sales through Nov. 27, said Toho Co, the film's distributor. The Japanese film, directed by animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, premiered on 316 screens, about half the number that will show Harry Potter. Companies making and selling Harry Potter accessories, clothing and toys are counting on the character's legions of fans to pump up sales.
More than 100,000 people jammed into a six-day Harry Potter exhibition in Tokyo's Isetan Co department store, said Toru Hayakawa, Isetan's chief sales promotion manager.
"We've never had that many people come to Isetan," said Hayakawa, who said some customers waited two hours to get in.
Isetan's sales of goods such as Harry Potter hats and brooms probably topped ?100 million over the six days, a record for branded merchandise at Isetan over such a period, Hayakawa said.
Tomy Co, Japan's second-largest toymaker, expects to sell ?30 million in key chains and other items tied to Harry Potter, said Shigemi Sugaya, a Tomy spokesman. Tomy shares have risen 9.5 percent since the film's US debut on Nov. 16 and 38 percent in the last three weeks.
I.K. Co, a privately owned company that sells Harry Potter pendants and bracelets, is "expecting to pull in ?500 million, which is a lot for us, on Potter goods through the spring,'' said Masashi Kabaya, an I.K. spokesman.
"The movie will certainly help us boost our earnings for the next fiscal year," said Sayoko Okada, a spokeswoman at Asahi Corp, a closely held company that is introducing Harry Potter brand shoes.
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