Demon Slayer Mugen Train becomes the 2nd Anime Film Ever to top US Box Office in Decades

The Box Office Mojo website shows that Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train has made $6,399,846 to overtake the new film Mortal Kombat ($6,200,000) and win its second match of the weekend at the U.S. box office. (Both of these films have experienced a 70% drop in revenue since the first weekend.) If their positions are held after the announcement of the final on Monday, Demon Slayer Mugen Train will break another record by becoming the second Japanese film – and the second most popular anime film – to rank #1 in the office boxes over the weekend in the US. The first Japanese film to do this was Pokemon: The First Movie released more than two decades ago.

First-week earnings

Demon Slayer Mugen Train earned the $21,144,800 at the US box office for his first weekend, making it the second-highest US anime film launch (unresolved by inflation), the US highest animated film opening up to now this year, with the biggest Funimation weekend opening three days so far. It was ranked #2 on its US opening weekend, behind Mortal Kombat (the $22,515,000 at 3,073 theaters).

Demon Slayer Mugen Trian Breaking Records

Demon Slayer Mugen Train is now the #3 most successful (unprecedented inflation) film in the United States with the $34,118,776 estimated in the US. It surpasses the first # 3, Dragon Ball Super: Broly ($30,712,119), and only trails behind Pokemon: First Movie ($85,744,662) and Pokemon 2000 – Movie ($43,758,684). According to The Numbers website, Demon Slayer Mugen Train is worth $3.5 million away from defeating The Eight-Hundred as the #1 film from 2020 worldwide.

Film’s performance in Japan

Demon Slayer Mugen Train premiered in Japan on October 16. The film had the world’s highest opening weekend on the weekend of October 16-18. The film sold 3,424,930 tickets and earned 4,623,117,450 yen (about $43.85 million) in Japan in its first three days. The film earned more than 1,268,724,700 yen (approximately $12.03 million) on its opening day alone, making it the highest opening day in Japan.

After being #1 for 12 weeks in the box office in Japan, the film became #2 on the weekend of January 9-10, on its 13th weekend. The film was screened in three major locations every week in Japan from then on, until the 22nd weekend.

The film surpassed 2002’s Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, its last major rival of Japanese box office history. (Spirited Away received 30.8 billion yen in its inception, but has since earned a total of 31.68 billion yen after last summer’s review.) The film also surpassed Spirited Away as the #1 most popular Japanese film of the season.

Demon Slayer Mugen Train in getting the success it deserves as we all know that the animation and production in the series is a true art which makes the movie a perfect match for the cinematic experience.