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Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare Earns Franchise's Highest Opening Weekend Box Office

Detective Conan: Junkoku no Nightmare (Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare), the 20th Detective Conan (Case Closed) anime film, opened in Japan last Saturday on 348 screens. It sold 933,800 tickets for 1.209 billion yen (about US$11.1 million) to top the Japanese box office in its opening weekend.

The film grossed 38% more than Detective Conan: Sunflowers of Inferno, the franchise's 2015 film, on their respective opening weekends. As a result, Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare earned the highest opening weekend gross in the franchise's history. Detective Conan: Sunflowers of Inferno eventually grossed a total of over 4.4 billion yen (about US$40.33 million), the highest so far in the franchise's history, but Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare is projected to eventually earn over 5 billion yen (about US$45.83 million).

The newest film accomplished its opening weekend record even though 11 of its theaters had to cancel screenings due to the Kumamoto earthquakes.

The official website teases how the film's story begins:

On a dark night, the Japanese police is raided by a spy. Different countries' intelligence agencies—such as England's MI6, Germany's BDN, and America's CIA—as well as the FBI's secret files are going to be taken, but public safety officers led by Tooru Amuro arrive just in time. The spy steals a car and escapes. The spy and Amuro are then locked in a dead heat on the highway, and just as it is about to cause an accident with multiple cars, the spy's car is hit by FBI agent Shuichi Akai's rifle bullet and falls off the roadway.

The next day, Conan and his friends go to a newly-remodeled aquarium in Tokyo. Under the main attraction, a Ferris wheel, Conan finds an attractive woman alone and injured. Her left and right eyes are different colors.

But the woman has a case of amnesia so severe she doesn't even remember her own name, and the cellphone she's carrying is broken. Conan and his friends promise to help her regain her memories, so they stay with her.

Throughout all this, Vermouth is watching behind the scenes. Afterward, she pulls out a silencer and speaks into an attached intercom, "It's as planned, Gin."

The film features members of the story's Black Organization who have previously appeared in the series: Gin, Vodka, Vermouth, Chianti, Korn, Kir, and Bourbon. The film's website also hints at the appearance of Rum, who has never been shown in the series.

Yūki Amami guest stars in the film as the "mysterious woman" whose eyes are different colors and who is a member of the Black Organization. Rock band B'z is performing the film's theme song "Sekai wa Anata no Iro ni Naru."

Source: Mainich Shimbun's Mantan Web