By selling 41.7% of all tickets in South Korea, the Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train anime ranked number one at the South Korean box office opening day on Wednesday.
Roughly 66,000 tickets were sold for the movie Demon Slayer on its opening day. And even before opening the highly-anticipated film in South Korea, it already ranked number one in advance ticket sales.
December was the original schedule of the drama in South Korea. However, due to concerns about the new variant of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), it was delayed to January 27. Compared to 2019, South Korea’s overall box office last year dropped by about 70%.
The films redeeming its place in the ranking
In Japan’s box office, the film dropped to number two during the January 9-10 weekend, its 13th weekend, after 12 consecutive weeks at number one.
The film sold 425,000 tickets during that weekend and earned 677,783,450 yen (about US$6.57 million) from Friday to Sunday.
The film’s rank list saw a dramatic rise in its position. It is after returning to the number one spot on its 14th weekend.
The film has sold 26.67 million tickets as of its 15th weekend. And it earned a cumulative total of 36,550,114,550 yen (about US$352.1 million).
Four out of 10 South Korean moviegoers watched Demon Slayer yesterday! https://t.co/PethedXcTy
— Anime News Network (@Anime) January 28, 2021
The staggering achievement of the film
The film’s last rival for all-time highest earnings in Japanese box office history, Hayao Miyazaki’s 2002 Spirited Away, was surpassed.
Previously, the original run of the film Spirited Away made it earn 30.8 billion yen. However, after this summer’s revival screenings, it has earned a total of 31.68 billion yen.
For the worldwide time record, the Demon Slayer film is now also the second highest-earning anime film. It topped the worldwide earnings of Your Name, US$357,986,087.
The previous television anime’s prominent staff members returned for the sequel film. In Japan, TOHO and Aniplex are handling the film’s distribution.
Meanwhile, the screening of the movie with Funimation and Aniplex of America will be in early 2021.
Image courtesy of Aniplex USA/YouTube Screenshot