"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" opened Saturday in about 340 theaters across Japan to large crowds eager to watch the wildly popular movie about the adventures of the young wizard.
Film distributor Warner Bros. hopes the film, adapted from the global best seller written by British author J.K. Rowling, can match the box-office record set by the Japanese animated film "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" ("Spirited Away").
"Spirited Away," the latest work by renowned director Hayao Miyazaki, set a new Japanese record this year, earning about 26 billion yen at the box office and attracting around 20.15 million viewers.
The Harry Potter film has been a smash success in the United States, where it grossed $188 million in the first 10 days after it opened.
More than 600,000 advance tickets for the film have been sold in Japan. The printed edition of the Harry Potter books are also magically disappearing off book store shelves, with more than 3.6 million copies sold to date.
The film is about an orphaned, unhappy boy who learns that he is endowed with magical powers and confronts villains at a school of witchcraft and wizardry.