Demon Slayer sends Margot Robbie on A Big Bold Beautiful Journey to the back of the box office
Sony's anime hit is another example of studios finally embracing anime and demons and taking it to the bank.
(Photo by Matt Kennedy — Courtesy of Sony)
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie Infinity Castle remains atop the box office for another week, according to The Numbers estimates, further suggesting that the future of movies lies in animated films about demon battles. Following the film’s impressive $70 million debut last week, Demon Slayer dropped 75 percent in its second weekend, which would be cause for alarm if Demon Slayer weren’t already the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, with a $555 million worldwide box office. There are also plenty of reasons for casual audiences to stay away, too: it’s the follow-up to an anime TV series, another trilogy of Demon Slayer movies, and the start of a new trilogy. Even with the homework, the movie is the ninth-highest-grossing movie of the year, and its stateside success indicates studios are finally figuring out how to cut a slice of the anime pie that has been a large part of Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s diet for years. Combined with Minecraft and KPop Demon Hunter, it appears studios are starting to listen to what kids and young adults want, and it’s video game adaptations and cartoon demon fights. Sony is all in and has two more anime releases on the way: Chainsaw Man: The Movie Reze Arc in October and Scarlet in December.
However, while Sony’s Crunchyroll enjoys the spoils of Demon Slayer, the studio’s other release, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, took a big, bold, beautiful journey to Flopsville. With $3.5 million from 3,300 theaters, Margot Robbie’s Barbie follow-up cratered at the box office. Directed by After Yang‘s Kogonada and written by Menu scribe Seth Reiss, the film sees Robbie and Colin Farrell follow a magic GPS to a forgone conclusion, poor reviews, and a dismal box office. All three will hurt word-of-mouth, which an ambitious fantastical romance needs to transform into a sleeper hit. It couldn’t have helped that audiences might have thought the film was a sequel to President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which will cut a trillion dollars in federal health care spending over the next decade and made ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history.
