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Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Tops Superman as #1 Comic Book Film of the Year

Deadline and The Numbers services reported on Sunday that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle - Akaza Sairai, the first film in the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle trilogy, has earned an estimated total of US$633 million worldwide as of Sunday, October 5. That makes the film the highest grossing comic book film of the year, after surpassing Superman's US$615,784,465. (Infinity Castle had already overtaken Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*.) That would also make the anime film the #6 highest-grossing film of 2025 so far after topping F1: The Movie.

(The Hollywood Reporter and Box Office Mojo list the film's worldwide box office total at "US$757.6 million" as of Sunday. However, the discrepancy between their total and Deadline and The Numbers' total is US$124.6 million, which is exactly the U.S. box office total that all four services list.)

Deadline added that the first Infinity Castle film earned US$324.6 million in Crunchyroll/Sony markets (which are outside Japan and some other Asia markets) by adding US$10.2 million this weekend (US$3.5 million in the U.S. and US$6.7 million outside the U.S.) To date, the film has earned a total of US$17.4 million in Mexico, US$14.4 million in Germany, US$14.2 million in France, US$9.3 million in India, and US$8.9 million in the United Kingdom.

The film had sold 67,020,204 tickets worldwide for 82,359,480,810 yen (about US$568 million at the US$1-to-145 yen exchange rate) as of September 22. In particular, it had sold 8.91 million tickets for over US$100 million in the United States, and 23,727,443 tickets for 34,186,470,400 yen (about US$236 million) in Japan after 67 days. It has since sold 24,266,753 tickets for 35,064,331,400 yen (about US$242 million) in Japan after 73 days.

The film is the highest-earning anime film of all time worldwide, as well as the highest-earning Japanese film of all time worldwide. It is the first anime film to top the U.S. for two consecutive weekends. It is the highest-grossing anime film in the country (unadjusted for inflation) and also the first to earn over US$100 million there.

The film earned US$70,611,098 in its opening weekend. Besides breaking the record for the biggest opening weekend for an anime film in the U.S. — unadjusted for inflation, it also broke the same record even when adjusted for inflation by two different measures. The 1999 anime film Pokémon: The First Movie (Pocket Monsters: Mewtwo Strikes Back) previously held the biggest opening weekend record at US$31 million.

The first Infinity Castle film is the second highest-earning film of all time at the Japanese box office, surpassing Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's 2001 film Spirited Away, which earned 31.68 billion yen (about US$315 million in 2001's yen-dollar conversion).

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, the October 2020 film from the same franchise, is currently the highest-earning film in Japan, with a 40.75 billion yen (about US$277 million in current conversion) total take in Japan. The film itself surpassed Spirited Away (then the #1 highest-earning film in Japan) in December 2020, two months after it opened in Japan.

Haruo Sotozaki directed first Infinity Castle film at ufotable, and ufotable is also credited for the screenplay. Aimer performed the song "Taiyō ga Noboranai Sekai" ("A World Where the Sun Never Rises"), and LiSA performed the song "Zankoku no Yoru ni Kagayake" ("Shine in the Cruel Night").

Sources: Deadline (Nancy Tartaglione), The Numbers, The Hollywood Reporter (Pamela Mcclintock), Box Office Mojo