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NEWS: Dragon Ball Super: Broly Film Ranks #3 at U.S. Weekend Box Office With US$10.7 Million


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Takizawa-Shinzou



Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 102
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 2:22 pm Reply with quote
"Already #3 all-time anime in U.S. with US$21 million, behind 1999 & 2000 Pokémon films"

That's actually really sad when you consider inflation. Back in 2000 movie tickets were like $5.39 dollars and now they're over $9. They never account for inflation when they brag about their success because it will drop them a lot.

In today's money, Pokemon: The First Movie did 53 million opening weekend. 2000 did 33 million for opening weekend. Compared with Broly's 10 million, it's not even a contest. Pokemon movies dropped in success each time. Anime movies in general seem not be getting more popular in the US at all despite anime itself seemingly getting more popular.

Real opening weekend rankings when adjusted for inflation according to Box Office Mojo for anime movies:

1. Pokemon First Movie
2. Pokemon 2000
3. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie (13.4 million)
4. Pokemon 3: The Movie (12.8)
5. Broly (10.6m)

and more to my point about how "bad" (These numbers are not awful for the niche audience they have) most anime films do, #6 is Arietty way down at 7 million, and then #8 is Ponyo with only 4.2 million. This all adjusted to 2019 values.
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Maidenoftheredhand



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 2:57 pm Reply with quote
Yes ticket prices are higher but that is also a reason less people go to the movies. Less people are going to the movies in general. It’s not just anime.

Even ignoring inflation the movie is doing tremendously well.

Edit: Also if the Pokémon movies dropped in success each time, out of the 3 recent Dragon Ball movies they rose in success.
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HoboSoup



Joined: 06 Aug 2017
Posts: 361
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:06 pm Reply with quote
Takizawa-Shinzou wrote:
"Already #3 all-time anime in U.S. with US$21 million, behind 1999 & 2000 Pokémon films"

That's actually really sad when you consider inflation. Back in 2000 movie tickets were like $5.39 dollars and now they're over $9. They never account for inflation when they brag about their success because it will drop them a lot.

In today's money, Pokemon: The First Movie did 53 million opening weekend. 2000 did 33 million for opening weekend. Compared with Broly's 10 million, it's not even a contest. Pokemon movies dropped in success each time. Anime movies in general seem not be getting more popular in the US at all despite anime itself seemingly getting more popular.

Real opening weekend rankings when adjusted for inflation according to Box Office Mojo for anime movies:

1. Pokemon First Movie
2. Pokemon 2000
3. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie (13.4 million)
4. Pokemon 3: The Movie (12.8)
5. Broly (10.6m)

and more to my point about how "bad" (These numbers are not awful for the niche audience they have) most anime films do, #6 is Arietty way down at 7 million, and then #8 is Ponyo with only 4.2 million. This all adjusted to 2019 values.


From what I've heard anime movies often sell out. The biggest problem is the extremely limited number of showings and very limited number of theaters doing those showings. Plus as you mentioned anime is still rather niche even after it's rise in popularity. All things considered Broly is doing very well right now. Notably more advertising would help, but the main thing buying tickets is families. Typically speaking you're not going to get American families going to go see anime. It'd be cool, but Pixar and Disney have that corner dominated.

Which is unfortunate because I think Disney and Pixar add to why a lot of adults won't give animation a chance. It's hard to shake off the idea that it's for very young kids only. I'm reminded of a thing where I think Bill Burr said he watched one punch man just to try something different, and he liked it. It'd be nice if people were more open minded in general.

Also take Into The Spider Verse, one of my favorite films of 2018 but it's only made about 300 million world wide. It's a lot compared to anime sure, but not a lot compared to Disney and Pixar animations. Also not a lot compared to Comic Book movies in general, I haven't watched Aqua Man but I can almost guarantee you I'd still prefer Spider Verse if I saw it, and Aqua Man made over 1 billion dollars world wide.

Honestly it's strange, a lot of people are fine with live action Super Hero movies but you'd lose a lot of their popularity if you focused on more animated ones. Personally I'd prefer animated super hero films over live action. Same with video games, people love and demand realistic graphics, I prefer something more stylized and less mirroring our own reality.
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Maidenoftheredhand



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:14 pm Reply with quote
HoboSoup that is also a good point about limited screenings. I saw DBS Broly twice: On Wed Night and Saturday at 4 and both the showings I went to were sold out!
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AsuraTheDestructor



Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 466
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 3:41 pm Reply with quote
This is honestly just more proof to me that Funimation should take a chance and start releasing their films with a much more wide release.

Dragon Ball Super Broly's potential was squandered a bit due to the limited release.
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Primus



Joined: 01 Mar 2006
Posts: 2758
Location: Toronto
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:15 pm Reply with quote
AsuraTheDestructor wrote:
This is honestly just more proof to me that Funimation should take a chance and start releasing their films with a much more wide release.

Dragon Ball Super Broly's potential was squandered a bit due to the limited release.


It really is bizarre when you consider Funimation is owned by a major movie studio. Sony Pictures gave a trashy horror film a wide release and it did worse than Broly has.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5886
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:14 pm Reply with quote
Primus wrote:


It really is bizarre when you consider Funimation is owned by a major movie studio. Sony Pictures gave a trashy horror film a wide release and it did worse than Broly has.


To be fair Broly isn't in a oversaturated genre that routinely sees more duds than hits.
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 6:09 pm Reply with quote
That is damn impressive for a limited release.

It shows, all the showings at the local theatre have been sold out.
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:41 pm Reply with quote
"$5.39 in 1999 → $8.13 in 2019" http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1999?amount=5.39

Last night, one guy had to split up from his friends and sit next to me in a seat with a view almost half-blocked by the exit path's safety wall. Compare this to GKIDS' Ghibli Fest, where I was able to walk in off the street without a ticket, minutes before opening, and still get a good seat in a mostly empty theater. Yet GKIDS does three nights per movie (two dubbed and one subbed, IIRC). https://gkids.com/2018/06/22/studio-ghibli-fest-2018/

Aside from theater availability, those golden age Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh numbers came from the coveted audience of families with kids. I don't think that comparison means much. We we who grew up with anime, and went to see Broly this week, didn't have to drag our parents or uninterested siblings with us to the theater this time.
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GeorgeC



Joined: 22 Nov 2008
Posts: 795
PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:48 pm Reply with quote
Beatdigga wrote:
That is damn impressive for a limited release.

It shows, all the showings at the local theatre have been sold out.



You're making some presumptions based on how many years of being a fan? 3-5 years?

1) It's Dragonball. It's the most popular anime series of the last 30 years!
I'm not a huge Dragonball fan but it doesn't surprise it does that well. There's not much else that IS this popular in anime.

2) It's animated wrestling. Pro wrestling has been popular for as long as I can remember.
It has a much bigger crossover audience than most other anime and the appeal is very basic. It doesn't go over people's heads or aspire to be high art.

3) If you think Dragonball being sold out means ALL anime screenings sell out, you haven't been to many anime screenings. I'm in a Top 15 market and these screenings RARELY sell out unless it's something popular like Dragonball or Fate/Stay Night. Most of these films simply aren't that popular, they're not well-known and most people are stingy with their theater money. They rarely sell out more than half the seats in a theater and many of these screenings have 15 people or less attending. I went to one screening where I was the only person in the theater!

These screenings are basically promotions for the later home video releases. They're not expecting to make big money on these things in theater. It's just the nature of the beast. They never made large amounts of money when they really started screening anime features in the late 1980s and back then it was a labor of love to bring the films out. They hoped to break even but even those screenings were prepping the pond for the later home video releases. Akira, Twilight of the Cockroaches, and My Neighbor Totoro were shown in theaters in the late 1980s and early 1990s and eventually released on home video by 1992/1993 in all three cases. They made at least 85% of their money on the VHS releases!

The difference now is that they're actually screening more films that DON'T happen to be Studio Ghibli films or Akira. They didn't do this 15 or 20 years ago. Part of the reason why they can do screenings is the transition to digital technology. They can beam movies from the film owner to theaters digitally or they send them a special Blu ray disc. When I saw the Robotech Shadow Chronicles movie at a con 12 years ago(!), the HG rep brought the film to show the audience on a DVD. Being able to bring a film on disc or beam it in digital format is a HUGE savings over having to lug or ship 16mm or 35mm prints of a film!
It is UNUSUAL to sell out a theater and they often put the anime films in the smallest theater in a cineplex and they STILL don't sell out!

For a while, Disney treated screenings of Ghibli movies as a "prestige event" and they didn't care if those films didn't gross over $5million or $8million in distribution. They were considered arthouse movies in the US and arthouse movies don't make that much money!
This is when (late 1990s, early 2000s) Hollywood became REALLY interested in anime (because they follow industry leaders and figured the Mouse was onto something) and stared licensing a bunch of anime properties left and right.
These things became "less special" as time worn and Disney's distribution deal with Tokuma (Ghibli's parent company in Japan) wounded down. The only Ghibli films that WERE heavily promoted in the US were Hayao Miyazaki's and even during Disney's licensing deal with Tokuma they DID allow another company (GKids) to license and theatrically exhibit the later non-Miyazaki (Hayao, not Goro!) films Disney had no interest in licensing to release in the US (Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves, Marnie, Princess Kaguya, From Up on Poppy Hill).
Disney DID exhibit Tales From Undersea but that's because A) it was Goro Miyazaki's first feature film and B) it was based on popular cult sci-fi novel series by Ursula K. LeGuin and they wanted in on that crossover audience. The LeGuin fans generally didn't like the film that much and most Ghibli fans think it's a lesser Ghibli film, too. People generally like Goro's second movie, From Up On Poppy Hill, better, even if it's not a very ambitious movie...
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:04 am Reply with quote
GeorgeC wrote:
You're making some presumptions based on how many years of being a fan? 3-5 years?

(...)3) If you think Dragonball being sold out means ALL anime screenings sell out(...)

I don't think he's been a fan for "3-5 years," considering he registered here in 2003.

He said he was impressed that it made that much, despite the apparent fact that people who wanted to see it weren't able to get into the sold-out screenings. He never even hinted that he thinks "ALL anime screenings sell out."
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:32 am Reply with quote
Usually films with limited releases don’t crack the box office top 5. Granted it’s January but that’s still a rather good show when screenings like this are usually one night only productions in large or arthouse theatres.
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MoonPhase1



Joined: 29 Nov 2007
Posts: 492
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:33 am Reply with quote
I remember when I saw Your Name and it was just me and about 3 couples who went to see it on the night I went. While I did also go to the DBZ Battle Of Gods and Resurrection F which were way more crowded than that, but this just seems like a whole another level.
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Gasero



Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Posts: 939
Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 8:23 pm Reply with quote
I want to watch DB Super Broly, but in the age of streaming, I would much rather wait for a home video release so that I can watch and rewind the movie on my own time.

The market has so drastically changed since the prime days of anime in pop culture that I am not sure how valid the comparison is to early 2000s Pokemon and Yugioh.

These days, anime just seems like a home-video market in the US.
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 8:33 pm Reply with quote
Lifetime USA gross:
Battle of Gods - $2.5 million
Resurrection 'F' - $8 million
Broly - $22 million so far
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/search/?q=dragon%20ball
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?studio=funimation.htm

Broly opened in Japan with a $9 million weekend, and reached a total gross of $33 million.*
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=dragonballzbroly.htm

Box Office Mojo's editorial calls Broly's USA performance "incredibly impressive."
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4477
*Japanese $33m total reported at this link, versus $31.5m at previous link.

Another editorial: https://www.the-numbers.com/news/236260830-Weekend-Estimates-Glass-Cracks-Still-Tops-Chart "At this point, every [Hollywood] studio is probably looking at Anime franchises to see what they can import to make some easy cash. I’m all for this, as long as they also push the high quality films for Awards Season glory." Yeah, good luck with that. Rolling Eyes

Dragonball Evolution USA Total Gross: $9,362,785 (about $11m in 2019 dollars)
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=dragonball.htm
Annihilated.

Gasero wrote:
I want to watch DB Super Broly, but in the age of streaming, I would much rather wait for a home video release so that I can watch and rewind the movie on my own time.

If you've ever enjoyed the experience of a good theater crowd, this is/was a great one. Lots of laughter and cheering, a very positive atmosphere. Especially compared to, say, recent Star Wars opening nights I've been to. Razz
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