With excellent weekend performances from both Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and Conjuring: Last Rites, it has been a good weekend for the international box office - and for New Line cinema, which will be the next studio to cross the $1B mark this year. To bring us up to speed, we have our Blake & Wang P.A. Entertainment Lawyer Los Angeles, Brandon Blake.
The (Not-So-Little) Anime That Could
Having now passed $555M globally, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has toppled quite a few milestones on its rise to box office supremacy. It managed to pull in a further $36M from 62 international markets over this past weekend, and around $17M in the US. It also expanded to German and French language hubs, with strong starts for both.
This now leaves it not only the highest-grossing anime movie we’ve seen worldwide, but it will also bring it the title of biggest Japanese film of all time, at least at the global level. Ironically, although the original movie took almost 41B yen in its home market, Infinity Castle has only made 34B yen.
However, there has been a significant shift in exchange rates since Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, the original movie, was released, meaning Infinity Castle has performed better in dollar terms. More proof, if any is needed, that anime’s popularity now extends far beyond its traditional bases. The film is being distributed by Crunchyroll and Sony in most markets, on behalf of Toho/Aniplex in Japan, with Korea and Taiwan excepted.
Conjuring: Last Rites Shines
In other box office news, New Line and Warner Bros.' release of The Conjuring: Last Rites is now officially the largest entrant in the Conjuring universe. There’s plenty for New Line to celebrate, for sure, as this will also push it over the $1B mark for 2025 releases. It is currently standing at $400M worldwide. The release has been the best-performing Conjuring title in Europe, taking the No. 1 spot in 18 markets, as well as 10 in Latin American markets. For 9 of these, it’s the best horror title release.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale continued its farewell tour through Europe as well, adding Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Norway for a total of 35 markets. While its global takings of $59.5M may look small next to the other two titles, it is performing above the older Downton Abbey film in almost all markets at the same point in its release cycle.
With The Bad Guys 2 managing a credible $207.8 global cume, the underperformance of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is less of a sting for overall box office numbers. Additionally, both Weapons and Materialists are continuing to turn in a solid box office showing, with holdovers such as Jurassic World: Rebirth, Smurfs, and the re-launched The Naked Gun franchise rounding out a successful weekend at the box office.
On a smaller scale, new indie entrants HIM and Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie, both from Universal, managed to carve out small niches among cinema audiences. Let’s hope there are many more record-busting weekends to come for the box office this year.
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