'Earth' passes 2 billion yen in Japan

Box office is biggest for a docu in 10 years

By MARK SCHILLING

TOKYO -- "Earth," the feature version of the hit BBC nature docu series "Planet Earth," has passed the two billion yen ($18.5 million) mark, making it the biggest BO docu of the past ten years.

"Earth" passed the previous top docu of the decade, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which scored 1,700 billion yen ($15.9 million) in 2004. The take also exceeded that of the hit French nature docu "March of the Penguin," which grossed 1 billion yen ($9.3 million) in 2005.

The pic, directed by Alastair Fothergil and Mark Linfield and narrated in Japanese by Ken Watanabe was released by Gaga Communications on 270 screens in December 1 and hit the 1 billion yen mark after only ten days and the one million admission mark after 16 days.

"Earth" is the second Gaga pic to achieve the two billion yen plateau since the company joined the Usen group in 2005. The first was Alexander Inarritu's drama "Babel," which Gaga released in April of last year.

The all-time docu champion in Japan remains Kon Ichikawa's "Tokyo Olympiad," a near-three hour docu of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that recorded 1,250 billion yen ($11.7 million), when the average ticket price was 178 yen ($1.66), compared with 1,216 yen ($11.36) in 2007.