Warner Bros became the first non-Japanese distributor to launch aJapanese picture number one at the local box office with the release of DeathNote.

Shusuke Kaneko's horror tale about a fateful missive that killsits readers opened on Jun 17 and grossed $3.5m over two days, the equivalent of409million Yen.

Warner Bros plans to release Death Note: The Last Name, the second instalment in the two-part comic bookadaptation, in November.

The previousopening weekend record for a Japanese picture released by a foreign distributorwas 118million Yen set by Sony's Ultraman Tiga in 2000.