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Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' Ranks #9 Among All Anime Films in U.S. So Far
posted on by Egan Loo
The Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' film earned US$1,371,000 on Saturday to bring its total in American theaters US$5,367,000. In five days, it has already surpassed the U.S. box office totals of both Howl's Moving Castle (US$4,711,096) and The Wind Rises (US$5,209,580) to rank #9 among all anime films in the United States to date.
Among the top 10 anime films in the U.S., Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' is the only one that was independently distributed outside the major studios, and it is the only film that is not from Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Studio Ghibli, or Digimon.
Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' opened on 895 theaters on Tuesday, then played on 901 theaters on Wednesday and Thursday, and dropped to 50 screens on Friday. It then played on 901 U.S. theaters and 42 Canadian theaters on Saturday, before dropping to 154 on Sunday. It was initially not going to play in any theaters on Monday before returning to about 800 theaters on Tuesday.
However, Michael Duboise, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Funimation, reported that 200 theaters will bring back the film on Monday due "overwhelming response from our fans," plus 250 more theaters on Tuesday. The film closes out its limited engagement with 367 theaters on Wednesday.
The film opened with US$1,967,626 at #6 on Tuesday, and added US$1,553,580 at #5 on Wednesday. It brought in another US$417,138 on Thursday and added US$57,730 on Friday.
The previous Dragon Ball film, Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, earned US$2,553,002 total in the U.S.
In Japan, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' earned approximately 1.29 billion yen (about US$10.9 million) in its first six days, and sold more than 1 million tickets in its first seven days at the Japanese box office.
Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' premiered on 658 screens in both 2D and 3D in theaters across Japan on April 18, although advance screenings were held before then. The film was the first Japanese film to open in 3D IMAX Digital Theaters.
Funimation hosted the North American premiere of the film on April 11 in Los Angeles. The company then premiered the film's English dub at Anime Expo on July 2.
Update: New numbers from Box Office Mojo added. The website reports that Shaun the Sheep Movie earned an estimated US$5,571,000 after five days, including Sunday.
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