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TOKYO - Domestic films overtook Hollywood for the first time in 21 years at the Japanese box office in 2006.
The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan said the revenue from Japanese movies reached 78.39 billion yen (643.36 million dollars) in 2006, while that of non-Japanese films was 74.09 billion yen.
It was the first time that Japanese movies outpaced Hollywood since 1985, when US monster movies "Ghostbusters" and "Gremlins" swept the world.
"More people coming from outside of the film industry are making movies these days," said Isao Matsuoka, chairman of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan.
"Japan's overall capability to create movies is growing," he said.
The final report on 2006 box office trends showed that 28 Japanese movies earned more than one billion yen compared with 21 foreign films.
However, the top three earners were all from Hollywood.
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the latest installment of adventures of the boy wizard, was the year's top performer, grossing 11 billion yen, followed by Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," with the much-anticipated bestseller turned movie "The Da Vinci Code" in third place.
The most popular Japanese film, which came in fourth, was "Gedo Senki," the film debut of Goro Miyazaki, the son of animation legend Hayao Miyazaki.
Based on US writer Ursula Le Guin's "Earthsea" stories, which were published from 1968 and later compared with J.K. Rowling's smash-hit "Harry Potter" series, the animated film tells the story of a boy who becomes a wizard. - AFP/sh
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