Wow! Do you know charlie if Mugen Train will ever be released in China?

9th weekend down by 7 % in SK - new total $12.6m (1.48m admissions)

Superb hold in SK. I guess release of anime helped it a lot.

I was wondering if LATAM could have done well for this one but it was hit by COVID. GvK however, opened big in Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. That increased my confidence, but then I checked google trends of Demomn Slayer with Dragon Ball Broly. This isn't anywhere close so not expecting much there.

USA was good in trends. Can expect $20M I guess.

One market which was strong is Russia. Surprised there is no Russia release yet.

Original post has been updated with all the updated totals (that I know of).

I also updated the upcoming release schedule. Since the last update, it's opening in Finland this weekend, followed by much of the Americas in the third week of April. That includes the United States (April 23rd) and Mexico (April 22nd), and many countries in Central and Latin America on April 22nd. For the countries in Central and Latin America, the distributor partners note that depending on the individual country, the release date could vary, so I've just lumped them all together until the release date gets closer.

And not sure why it hasn't received a Russia release date yet. Guessing distributor issues.

Yeah it is having a small preview opening in Finland. Major cities have their theaters closed, but I get to see the movie in theaters tomorrow. Unexpected benefit of living in a smaller city.

Very cool. Hope you enjoy!

Nice MagicTrick I'm sure you'll love the experience

Corpse is it coming near your place by April? I'm sure you would be eager to watch it after following it's BO for so long.

Demon Slayer is quite big in Russia huh? I didn't know that.

Does the movie have good trend in North America?

I'll probably have to go out of state. We moved to a very rural area after working in the "city" for 10 years to save up a bunch of money to buy a house here and live forever comfortably, basically (our mortgage is 23% of what our rent was). I think there is more cattle than humans in a 50-mile radius. There is one theater within an hour of me, and it's a single-screen locally-owned theater that has one showing a day, that probably won't get it. I know the owner, and could make a request, but could be risky showing it versus something more appealing around here.

The next closest theater, roughly an hour away (depending on if a tractor is on the road), is a Regal location and has been closed. I'll need to check to see when (or if) they're reopening and if they're getting it. After it, I'd have to travel at least 2 hours for another theater, but I'm willing to plan a 2-3 hour drive to see it. Not THAT big of a deal when it can be turned into a day trip and such.

That's nice to hear about your house and yeah I'm sure the travel coupled with movie would make a nice rise trip day

Question: did Demon Slayer now officially pass up Bad Boys for Life in the 2020 box office ($426.7 vs $426.5)? Also it looks like My People My Homeland is also attainable at $433.2 million. Do you see a China release at some point and will that bump it to the #1 spot of 2020 (all the way in April/May of 2021...)?

If it was shy before the weekend, then Saturday definitely put it over. It should be a tad above $429 million after Sunday.

The China release is probably not happening. It was originally going to be released in China, but it didn't pass their censors presumably for being too violent/gory. Nothing has been said ever since, and it's been like 4 months now.

The good news... it likely won't need a single dollar from China to become the #1 film WW of 2020! Japan will get it perhaps as much as $10 million more, so that'll get it to ~$440 million. Add a couple million more from South Korea due to its strong legs there, and just say $1 million from all other markets it's in, then it can could approach $445 million from just the existing markets it's playing in.

So it'll just need a little more than $15 million from the United States, Mexico, and all of Central and Latin America where (possible) it's opening across in a few weeks to surpass The Eight Hundred. And there are still some European markets where it's announced for, but has been delayed in due to lockdowns, that will add at least something when it opens in them. Surely all of these markets can muster at least $15-20 million (but hopefully a bit more than that...).

And if it can "breakout" (for COVID standards) in the U.S. or a few other markets, then $500 million remains in play (again, even without China).

Well there are two numbers for the Eight Hundred (BOM has $461 mil while the Numbers has it $473 mil). Like you said, with China out of play, the US needs to deliver for Demon Slayer to hit #1.

Do you think how many showtimes that DS needs to reach $10 million in the U.S. like MHA's 2nd movie?

I really don't know how wide it needs to open or what it may do in the U.S.

I think it's safe to say that My Hero Academia is the bigger name in the U.S. (I think it's the best selling, most popular anime/manga series in the U.S. since Naruto), so a direct comparison there probably suggests Demon Slayer will do less. You see a lot of MHA merchandise in pretty much every retailer (Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, shopping mall stops like Hot Topic, Spencers, F.Y.E., etc., and even more item-specific stores like Old Navy) in the U.S. now. I also see a surprising number of people sporting the MHA uniform hoodies or shirts.

Demon Slayer has been growing in the U.S., no question there, but I don't know if it's grown enough to do $10 million or more at this stage (its growth is a lot more recent). I see merchandise for it at just about every retailer as well now too, just not in as high quantity. And Viz announced that it had sold over 1 million books last year in the U.S., which is quite strong for the market and helped them achieve a record year. And, of course, there's all the hype surrounding what the movie itself has done in the Japan and worldwide now, so that might bring in a broader audience. We'll just have to wait and see.

And in general, anime/manga has grown a lot more mainstream in the U.S. in recent years. That'll help any future films at the box office, I imagine.

Thank you for your explanation.

Personally, I hope DS can surprise us again in the U.S. The famous words from Rengoku, soon-to-be the 40 billion man in Japan , fit perfectly to the situation that the audience in western countries have faced over the year. Hence, it will be very emotional and encouraging for them to watch. In this case, word of mouth can help to boost the movie in its later weeks, like what happened in South Korea.

Will be released in Russia in May or June.

DS may perform well in South Africa although only 6 theaters will premiere the movie. All evening showtimes on Friday are nearly full now. On Saturday, one third to half of the seats are booked.
https://numetro.co.za/movie/5923/

I expect the movie can earn $10,000 USD (148,000 South Africa Rand) on its opening weekend. Despite of the humble number, it is a very good result for an anime movie with only 6 theaters.

Today's the prebooking for Mugen Train in the US! Anyone in US can tell us what's happeninn with ticket sales? Been searching and it seems a lot of movie theater seats have been sold out. And Imax screen is being shared with Mortal Combat so seats for Imax is limited?

Fans reported that Cinemark provides showtimes, too. You can check that. Fandago website does not include Cinemark in their data search.

Until this point, I think the U.S. release will not be significant enough for DS to thrive on the western land.

Looking at Cinemarks in the Chicago suburbs they all have only one 7pm showtime on Friday and one Saturday showtime at 2pm...but they're all filling up very quickly. Wonder how long it'll take Funimation to realize that they need to treat this like a regular theatrical release instead of a Fathom Events release.

Soon because Demon Slayer is trending on Twitter now

Hmm I just looked at the AMC website in the same region, and they all have showtimes for the entire first week. Not sure what's up with that, different deals for different chains? Regardless, the weekend showtimes are all filling up pretty quickly with even a couple of sellouts already. It's probably gonna be a very niche film here, so I'm not quite sure how high it can go, but it could end up being one of Funimation's biggest hits yet if they handle it correctly.

This also happened to our country's distributor. It only opened for a few areas and got sold out. They had no choice but open up more to accommodate the demand. At least Mugen Train had pre sales so the chains could determine the demands better