Beauty and the Beast, released locally as Bijo to Yaju-the title of the original fairytale in Japanese, topped the weekend box office in Japan with $986,000 (114 million) after debuting in the third spot last week for distributor Gaga. The French-German production, starring Vincent Cassel as the beast, saw its take drop significantly from its debut over the three-day holiday last weekend, but still rose to the top of the charts. In an unspectacular weekend at the Japanese box office, supernatural thriller Twilight Sasara Saya, starring Yui Aragaki as a young widowed mother, brought in $935,000 (108 million) from 82,140 admissions. The film, released by Warner Japan, topped Beauty and the Beast on admissions, but lost out on revenue. Read more Global Box Office: Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’ Rockets to $80M OverseasMeanwhile, Japan will not be a late box-office savior for Arnold Schwarzenegger-starrer Sabotage. The David Ayer-directed film opened in the 13th place at the weekend box office. Local rom-com Clover, which has taken the familiar manga to big-screen route, fell one rank down the charts to fourth. Another manga live-action adaptation, Close Range Love (Kinkyori Renai), held onto the fifth spot in its fifth week of release, taking it past the 1 billion yen ($8. 6 million) mark. Dracula Untold, the origin story released in Japan as Dracula Zero, dropped down to sixth after its $1. 32 million (153 million) bow in third last weekend. In its 14th week in theaters, Stand by Me Doraemon-the latest installment in the hugely successful “cat-type robot” franchise – climbed back into the ninth spot after dropping out of the top 10 last week. Propping up the top 10 on its fourth week of release was Grace of Monaco, the Grace Kelly biopic starring Nicole Kidman and released locally by Gaga. Twitter: @GavinJBlair Source link