Chainsaw Man buzzes through the Boss in yet another anime box office win

The story of Nebraska wasn't enough to overtake Chainsaw Man's big screen debut.

By Matt Schimkowitz | October 26, 2025 | 2:53pm

Photo by Macall Polay/Courtesy of MAPPA

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Chainsaw Man buzzes through the Boss in yet another anime box office win

Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight at ‌Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc. That’s what many moviegoers did over the weekend as Sony’s latest anime release through Crunchyroll took the top spot at the box office with a modest $17.2 million, per The Numbers‘ estimates. Though Chainsaw Man continued Crunchyroll’s string of number ones, it was a steep drop-off from the studio’s previous anime hit, Demon Slayer, a global phenomenon that grossed $70 million in its opening weekend and is on its way to surpassing $800 million worldwide. Still, it’s all good for Sony, which has struggled to entice audiences this fall with costly, auteur-driven underperformers like Caught Stealing and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Not to mention, the dealings that kept the studio from enjoying the KPop Demon Hunters‘ success. Thus far, despite hits like 28 Years Later and One Of Them Days, Demon Slayer is Sony’s only 2025 release to cross $100 million at the box office.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere opened in more than 3,400 theaters, but it might as well have stayed in nowhere. The movie landed at number four with $9.1 million, which is more depressing than the album Nebraska. 20th Century Studios is probably hoping for a run like A Complete Unknown, another Disney-backed biopic about the voice of a generation. That movie opened even lower in the top 10 at number six, but went on to gross $11 million on its way to $140 million worldwide. However, audiences might have had it with biopics at the moment, after Dwayne Johnson’s Oscar play, The Smashing Machine, failed to knock out moviegoers. Perhaps neither Johnson nor Jeremy Allen White moves ticket buyers like Timothée Chalamet. We’ll have more data points on that when Marty Supreme, a historical drama that feels like a biopic about a famous ping-pong player, opens this winter.

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Black Phone 2 held up reasonably well, landing at number two with $13 million, a 52% drop from last week. That’s probably another side effect of weak competition this weekend. The only other horror film, Neon’s Shelby Oaks, directed by YouTuber Chris Stuckman, opened on 1,800 screens to $2.3 million. Neon held off releasing Shelby Oaks for nearly a year, opting to re-edit the movie and reshoot portions, yet it was no match for the relentless horror of Colleen Hoover. The Hoover adaptation, Regretting You, a romantic tragedy starring Allison Williams, Dave Franco, Mckenna Grace, and Black Phone‘s Mason Thames, took in $12.8 million, a considerable decline from It Ends With Us‘ $50 million opening weekend last year. Still, imagine how much Regretting You can save on legal fees.

Tron: Ares finished off the top 5 with $4.7 million, a disappointing third week for the likely death knell of a franchise that audiences have been historically ambivalent toward. Tron: Ares‘ job was to boost lines for Disney’s popular Tron-based coasters at its theme parks. We don’t know whether Ares hurt more than it helped, but the red-and-black reskin of these rides should look pretty sharp.

On the indie side of things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia did a staggering $690,000 in 17 theaters. It had the highest per-theater count of any release, by far, with $40,000 per screen. Lesson here: Springsteen should have held a bald screening or two.

Here’s the full top 10:

1. Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc ($17.25 million)
2. Black Phone 2 ($13 million)
3. Regretting You ($12.8 million)
4. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere ($9.1 million)
5. Tron: Ares ($4.9 million)
6. Good Fortune ($3.1 million)
7. Shelby Oaks ($2.35 million)
8. One Battle After Another ($2.3 million)
9. Roofman ($2 million)
10. Paranorman re-release ($1 million—per Deadline)