×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Demon Slayer Is Now the #2 Anime Film in the U.S. of All Time

posted on by Egan Loo
Mugen Train earns US$43.96 million to top Pokémon 2000, trails only Mewtwo Strikes Back

Funimation reported on Saturday that Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train is now the #2 highest-earning anime film ever at the U.S. box office. As of Friday, the film has earned US$43,956,487 — edging out Pokémon 2000 - The Movie which had U$43,758,684 (unadjusted for inflation) 21 years ago. Only Pokémon: The First Movie stands ahead of Mugen Train with US$85,744,662.

Mugen Train began screening in Japan on October 16. The film was the highest-earning film worldwide from 2020, earning US$477 million. Mugen Train is the first non-Hollywood or non-American film to top the yearly box office worldwide since the beginning of cinema over a century ago.

In Japan, the Demon Slayer film has sold a total of 28.93 million tickets for 39.97 billion yen (about US$366.1 million) as of May 16. After 12 consecutive weeks at #1 in the box office in Japan, Demon Slayer 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.

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.

The main staff members of the previous television anime returned for the sequel film. TOHO and Aniplex are handling the film's distribution in Japan. Funimation and Aniplex of America will release the film digitally on June 22.

Sources: Funimation (Haley Whisennand), The Numbers


discuss this in the forum (15 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

News homepage / archives