An Anime Win for Sony with Demon Slayer

 There’s some good news (finally) for both Sony and Crunchyroll as we see one of the most successful anime openings to date from Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle. With all the details about this new win, we have Brandon Blake, the top entertainment law firm Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.

 


                                                                Brandon Blake

A New Record

Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle saw a magnificent opening weekend, bringing in somewhere in the range of $70M over its opening weekend. This also earned it the 6th best opening for September, the best on record for an anime movie. It’s also the best opening Sony has seen in the last two years, as well as a first for Crunchyroll. It’s estimated that 4.5M people have seen the film to date.

 

It’s a particularly impressive performance when we consider that walk-up business for the anime was expected to be low due to its niche nature, with almost 70% of the tickets sold being pre-booked. However, word of mouth seems to have benefited the film greatly. There were also numerous cases of people returning for a new showing.

A Positive for the Box Office

While some have been approaching the 2025 box office with inbuilt cynicism, we are actually seeing many signs that a healthy box office is returning, albeit with a few post-pandemic, post-streaming tweaks on the 2019 “normal”. Seeing a niche movie flourish on screen like this shows yet again that a diverse slate, accommodating many audiences and tastes, helps to support the box office and encourage moviegoers to keep the cinema as part of their entertainment choices.

 

While this was the fourth Demon Slayer to be released in domestic theaters, it’s the first since Sony took ownership of Crunchyroll, and their first release in the IP. In a year that’s been lackluster (at best) for them, no doubt Sony is very pleased with its performance.

 

 

 

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