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Demon Slayer Film Garners Japan's Biggest Weekday & Weekend Opening Ever

Famitsu.com reported on Monday that the Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train (Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha-Hen) film for the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba series has 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) in its opening day alone, making it the highest weekday opening day for in Japan ever.

The film sold 1,270,234 tickets and earned 1,701,723,350 yen (about US$16.14 million) on its second day. It sold 1,239,752 tickets and earned 1,652,669,400 yen (about US$15.67 million) on its third day. The Saturday and Sunday totals combined are Japan's highest weekend opening ever.

In comparison, Makoto Shinkai's your name. film earned 1,277,960,000 yen (about US$12.51 million) in its first three days in July 2016, and his next movie Weathering With You earned 1,643,809,400 yen (about US$15.22 million) in its first three days in July 2019. Outside of anime, Frozen 2 earned US$18.2 million in its opening weekend in Japan last November.

The film opened in Japan last Friday in 403 theaters, and it also began screening in all 38 IMAX theaters in Japan on the same day. Some theaters reportedly screened the movie 40 times each day. The film is the first Japanese film that opened this year to screen in IMAX theaters. Funimation and Aniplex of America will screen the film in theaters in North America in early 2021.

Theatergoers in Japan will receive a "Rengoku Volume 0" manga volume, which is limited to 4.5 million copies. Original manga creator Koyoharu Gotouge drew the manga, which shows Rengoku's first mission.

The main staff members of the previous television anime are returning for the sequel film. TOHO and Aniplex are handling the film's distribution in Japan.

Gotouge's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga inspired a television anime that premiered in April 2019, and aired its 26th and final episode in September 2019.

Aniplex of America describes the television anime's story:

It is the Taisho Period in Japan. Tanjiro, a kindhearted boy who sells charcoal for a living, finds his family slaughtered by a demon. To make matters worse, his younger sister Nezuko, the sole survivor, has been transformed into a demon herself.

Though devastated by this grim reality, Tanjiro resolves to become a “demon slayer” so that he can turn his sister back into a human, and kill the demon that massacred his family.

Sources: Famitsu.com, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web