Japan rushes to see ‘Whiplash’

Eighteen months ago, Whiplash premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the jury and audience awards — victories that helped propel it to chunky box office and awards glory. At the Oscars in February, the film was up for five gongs and went home with three — one short of leaders Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

But its success continues. Two months after a muted opening in Japan, the movie has already made back its production budget — $3.3 million (Dh12 million) — from that territory alone. Gaga, the local distributor who has released the film under the new title Session, is planning an expanded release stretching over at least two more months.

The Hollywood Reporter quotes a Gaga spokesperson who explains the sleeper-hit strategy was intentional, with screenings centred round a major Tokyo cinema, leading to packed theatres and mushrooming buzz. Whiplash’s relatively short running time and euphoric ending have been credited with fuelling much of the positive word of mouth around the film, with audiences leaving on a high. This was also felt to have helped its odds at festivals, where audience members often vote for films as they exit the cinema.

Whiplash has taken more than 10 times its budget at the box office. Domestically, it made $13 million, with healthy foreign markets including the UK ($2.5 million) and Turkey and Brazil, both of which took around $700,000. Yet Japan’s $3.5 million has some distance to go before it can match the $11.5 million the movie made in South Korea. Other recent surprise smashes in that country include Keira Knightley musical romance Begin Again and British spy action comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service.