When Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch arrived at Narita International Airport in December 2012 as part of a Star Trek Into Darkness promotional tour that also included director J.J. Abrams and co-star Chris Pine, he was (now famously) greeted there by an estimated 500 fans. An overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, female gathering, they had waited patiently behind a barrier at the arrivals floor of Terminal 2 since as early as 7:30 am (some accounts give 4 am), and by the time of Cumberbatch’s 4:45 pm appearance fans filled not only the lobby itself but the mezzanine floor above, which looked out over the hall.
Cumberbatch was neither the first foreign star to be greeted in this way by Japanese fans, nor was this an entirely grassroots event; according to the Japanese website SHERLOCK(BBC) & Benedict Cumberbatch, the film’s distributor had circulated Cumberbatch’s arrival information in advance, hoping for such a turnout and, presumably, the word-of-mouth it would generate in the Japanese press. And generate it it did, to judge by not only the press turnout at the airport that day, but also by the considerable number of interviews with Cumberbatch that began appearing in Japanese periodicals ranging from the mainstream movie magazine Screen to Vogue Japan beginning in March 2013.
On/Off Screen 