What are the most popular Disney movies in Japan (and what does this mean for future attractions)

The relative "success" (or failure) of movies is often defined by either their worldwide or U.S. only ("domestic") box office revenue, and when it comes to Disney, those figures will often play a major role in the likelihood that new attractions are themed to that franchise. However, when thinking about which characters might be coming soon to a park in Tokyo, it's interesting to look at which movies were particularly popular in Japan.

This list is obviously slightly skewed towards recent releases because the figures aren't inflation adjusted although it's worth noting though that inflation in Japan was close to zero before the covid-19 pandemic so that lack of adjustment doesn't change things as much as you'd think. Additionally, many of the older movies were not released in Japan, or at least not with a large countrywide release, so we again cannot make any assumptions about the popularity of a Snow White, Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty, whose characters are known because of the parks, rather than being movie intellectual property that could now fill them. The same is somewhat true of the iconic releases from the 90s (which often also lacked a nationwide release), although you can see some notable differences to the popularity in the US (which tends to drive our understanding of a movie's popularity).

The chart below compares each movies rank in box office revenue in the US and Japan:

We can see that generally movies that are popular in the US are similarly popular in Japan, with a few exceptions.

• The Lion King did horribly at the box office when first released in Japan, and this might be due to the controversy over the suggestion that movie borrowed too much content from a 1950 manga series which became a 1960s TV show. Either way, it's perhaps not a coincidence that we don't have any attractions linked to The Lion King in Tokyo.

• Cars is also far more popular in the US than Japan, and many other parts of the world for that matter. I'm not sure why this is exactly but perhaps Cars is quite an "American" film and car culture is more appealing in the US than in many other places?

  
  

• Inside Out is an interesting name on this list, given that it not only ranks lower in Japan with the original release, but also the sequel, so you cannot attribute this to just how it was released. Unfortunately, I think this franchise is one which could lead to lots of different park attractions, but that's less likely to happen in Tokyo based on this popularity (perhaps we'll get a long awaited addition to EPCOT's Wonders of Life Pavilion instead).

Of more interest for us if which movie franchises did particularly well in Japan, as these would presumably be those jumping to the front of the line for upcoming additions to the park:

• As we saw in the first chart earlier, Frozen is a phenomenon in a league of its own, with the original picture more than doubling the receipts of every other release. Given Tokyo's generally strict adherence as to where characters reside (you won't find Duffy and friends merchandise in Tokyo Disneyland), it's unlikely we see anything Frozen related added to Disneyland, and DisneySea doesn't have any room adjacent to Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey. In short, we're likely not getting anything new from Arendelle anytime soon.

  
  

• The first two releases from the Toy Story series didn't do huge numbers in Japan, though this could be more tied to availability rather than popularity, as we are talking about a 30 year old release now. However, the more recent three releases have been wildly popular and it's quite surprising we don't see more Toy Story in the parks, with Midway Mania the only current representation. Again, there might be hesitance to have representation in both parks, it wouldn't be surprising to see Woody and Buzz pop up in Disneyland given how well these characters continue to resonate with audiences.

  
  

• I was surprised to see Monsters Inc so high in Japan here, with both releases doing outstanding numbers in Japan. The original Monsters Inc is still the fourth highest grossing original release on our list, despite coming out 25 years ago. The sequel Monsters University then did even better at the box office. I might have suggested that this franchise was a little old to get anything new built in the parks, but then Disney announced Monstropolis at Hollywood Studios, which seems to have been received very well. In some ways, that maybe counts against the chances of seeing anything new from this franchise in Japan, as Disney (and I assume OLC) seem increasingly hesitant to copy-paste attractions around the world. The Monsters world is deep enough with characters that it could easily support a new attraction though.

  
  

• Big Hero 6 could be the biggest wildcard here. The movie, of course, has its origins in a Marvel comic set in Japan, and director Chris Williams has spoken about the influence of anime and Hayao Miyazaki films on this picture. We do have the wonderful Happy Ride with Baymax already at Tokyo Disneyland, but the visuals and combination of characters in this story could certainly support more.

What movies would you like to see represented in the parks? Do you think we're likely to get an entire land dedicated to a single movie within the Tokyo parks?