It looks like Harry Potter will follow Spiderman and premier the new film in the land of the rising sun. We get the scoop from the caves of Yahoo:
The fifth “Harry Potter” film, based on the best-selling books about the young boy wizard, will premiere in Japan on June 28, just months after “Spider-Man 3” marked a rare international movie debut in Tokyo.
A Warner Bros. spokeswoman in Tokyo said British actor
Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the broomstick-flying Harry, would come to Tokyo for the event, which is scheduled ahead of the movie’s London showing on July 3.
I am glad they are moving premiers around. I think that in order to foster and appreciate the growing international audience, this is something that is necessary. The word on the street also tells me that Tokyo is one of the coolest cities on earth, I have heard it described as being “20 years in the future.” It makes sense that you would want to pay homage to a great city with great events and movie premiers certainly fit the bill.
I hope the trend continues, I would love to see the odd film premier in Toronto, London, Helsinki, Sydney, Hong Kong, Moscow and other locations of celebration. It brings a fresh buzz about the film to the location of the premier. It will be interesting to see if Tokyo has better numbers after a film premiers there and if so, will this cause premiers to open in other parts of the globe.
hey doug,
They are premiering Harry Potter 5 in Japan because it is arguably the largest market outside of North America. Box office from japan is usually larger than even the United Kingdom. So i doubt they are doing this because they want to premiere movies outside of America more.
Tokyo rocks! I’m moving there NOW! …in the figurative sense.
I think it’s a great idea to do international premieres. We have the whole world to play on, so why not? Society is global. Borders are only implied.