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Demon Slayer Film Rebounds to #1 in Yen Earned at Weekend Box Office

The Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train anime sold about 97,000 tickets for 162,614,700 yen (about US$1.5 million) at the Japanese box office for the March 6-7 weekend. While it was #2 in the number of tickets sold for the weekend, it was #1 in yen earned over the next contender, I Fell in Love Like A Flower Bouquet. After 21 weekends, its latest weekend total did not drop, but rose by 4.5% over the previous weekend. Mugen Train has now sold a total of 27.87 million tickets and earned a cumulative total of 38,446,447,150 yen (about US$352.2 million).

In its second weekend in Australia, the film earned 70% less than its opening weekend with an AU$564,342 (around US$432,000) second weekend gross. The film earned AUS$1.86 million (about US$1.44 million) in its opening weekend in Australia.

In South Korea, the film ranked at #3 on its sixth weekend, selling 88,000 tickets. It has now sold a cumulative total of 1.05 million tickets in South Korea, and is the only the second film this year to top one million, after Soul.

After 12 consecutive weeks at #1 in the box office in Japan, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train dropped to #2 during the January 9-10 weekend, its 13th weekend. The film ranked at #1 again in its 14th and 15th weekend, fell back down to #2 in its 16th weekend, and stayed at #2 in its 17th weekend. The film ranked at #3 in its 18th and 19th weekends, before returning to #2.

The film has surpassed Hayao Miyazaki's 2002 Spirited Away, its last rival for all-time highest earnings in Japanese box office history. (Spirited Away earned 30.8 billion yen in its original run, but has since earned a total of 31.68 billion yen after last summer's revival screenings.) The film has also surpassed Spirited Away as the #1 highest-earning Japanese film of all time worldwide.

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train began screening in Japan on October 16. The film had the highest opening weekend globally for the October 16-18 weekend. The film 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) on its opening day alone, making it the highest weekday opening day in Japan ever.

The main staff members of the previous television anime returned for the sequel film. TOHO and Aniplex are handling the film's distribution in Japan. Funimation and Aniplex of America will screen the film in theaters in North America in early 2021.

Sources: KOFIC, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Eiga.com, if magazine (Jacki Keast), The Korea Herald (Yonhap), Box Office Mojo