Tales from Earthsea (2006) soared at the box office during its opening weekend, amassing ¥905 million yen ($7.9 million) to its credit upon its first two days of release on July 29th and 30th. The movie was released across 435 screens in Japan, making it the widest opening for a domestic film in the country this year. The opening represents the third largest opening weekend for a Japanese film for 2006 as well, surpassed only by Umizaru 2: Test of Trust's phenomenal ¥1.7 billion yen opening and Sinking of Japan's ¥910 million yen opening two weekends prior.

Oddly enough, Toho is expecting that the movie will gross ¥10 billion yen when all is said and done. A figure that would mean that the movie would have to have amazing legs at the box office, especially since the larger opening Sinking of Japan (2006) was given an estimated final haul of ¥7 billion yen. If the movie will be able to achieve such a feat is too early to tell, especially given the mixed reviews of the production. There is a chance that this lofty prediction was given simply to place the movie ahead of The Da Vinci Code, which currently is the highest grossing movie of the year in Japan at ¥9 billion yen, in hopes that one of Toho's movies might claim the top spot for 2006.

Regardless, this year represents one of the largest box office runs for the Japanese giant, which has already seen successes such as Suite Dreams, Umizaru 2: Test of Trust and Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 this year.