Japanese audiences underwhelmed by The Dark Knight

I think the problem was that they didn’t sufficiently consider the Japanese audience’s awareness of the movie.
Sure they had some television spots, an ad plastered on the Mixi login page and a giant billboard overlooking hachiko, but all the ads were more or less the same in that if you didn’t already know Batman, you weren’t going to recognize that the ads were for a new Batman movie.
Also factor in that they didn’t have any of the viral marketing that made it so anticipated in the US. A year ago people in the US knew that the movie was coming and were already making plans for early July to go see it.
On top of that, I didn’t see any of the actors promoting the movie in the Japanese media. Sure, they were there for the red carpet opening, but they didn’t go on SMAP X SMAP and play pool with Kimutaku like Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz did.
The result? Almost nobody I know had even heard of Dark Knight, and those that did had no idea that it was a Batman movie.
On the other hand, they were excited to see that horrible Ashton Kutcher movie…

I would have thought that they would have altered the title to include the word “Batman” for foreign markets (especially for Japan and the rest of Asia). The claim that the movie’s length contributed to the poor performance is completely inaccurate and foolish to suggest given how well other films of similar or extended length have done in the Japanese market. Also, I would have expected the darker tone to have been more of an attraction given the popularity of gothic~emo styles and themes, but perhaps I’m a few months behind the trends.

Either way, something major was messed up – most likely in the publicity as others have suggested – because Japan imports a TON of our crap films and have more than their share of their own fluff to stuff movie theaters with. That an excellent film such as The Dark Knight underperformed to such a degree simply does not compute.

Why is this surprising though? Simply different tastes…these kind of movies are viewed mostly by young people and Japanese youths/young adults are more interested in visible glamor and coolness. Older people read books. Thus, yes, Hancock does better in this market.

The sadder thing is that Korean crap dramas probably made more money than this, which doesn’t make sense. Asia is nuts.

How do we know Yada isn’t American?

Another way he could have phrased it that would have made a little more sense is “It may be that all the Japan-bashing lately…”