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Demon Slayer Earns #2 Highest Ever U.S. Opening for Anime Film
posted on by Alex Mateo
Funimation announced on Monday that the Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train anime has earned US$21,144,800 at the U.S. box office, which makes it the second-highest ever U.S. opening for an anime film (unadjusted for inflation), the highest U.S. opening for an animated film so far this year, and Funimation's largest three-day opening weekend to date. Pokémon: The First Movie holds the anime film record for the highest U.S. opening with US$31,036,678 million earned at the box office in 1999.
Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train ranked at #2 in its opening weekend in the U.S., behind the new Mortal Kombat film (US$22,515,000 in 3,073 theaters).
Funimation and Aniplex of America began screening Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train in theaters in Japanese with English subtitles and with an English dub in North America on April 23, and will release the film digitally on June 22. The film opened on over 1,600 screens, including in 4DX and on IMAX cinema.
Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train began screening in Japan on October 16. The film had the highest opening weekend globally for the October 16-18 weekend. The film sold 3,424,930 tickets and earned 4,623,117,450 yen (about US$43.85 million) in Japan in its first three days. The film sold 910,507 tickets and earned over 1,268,724,700 yen (about US$12.03 million) on its opening day alone, making it the highest weekday opening day in Japan ever.
After 12 consecutive weeks at #1 in the box office in Japan, the film dropped to #2 during the January 9-10 weekend, its 13th weekend. The film had ranked in the top three spots weekly in Japan since then, until its 22nd weekend.
The film has surpassed Hayao Miyazaki's 2002 Spirited Away, its last rival for all-time highest earnings in Japanese box office history. (Spirited Away earned 30.8 billion yen in its original run, but has since earned a total of 31.68 billion yen after last summer's revival screenings.) The film has also surpassed Spirited Away as the #1 highest-earning Japanese film of all time worldwide.
Sources: Press release, Cartoon Brew (Amid Amidi)
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