The popular Japanese manga and anime Demon Slayer’s film adaptation Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train has overtaken 2001’s Spirited Away as Japan’s highest-grossing film ever. It was released October 16, 2020, and has currently made $337 million at the box office, with Spirited Away making around $308 million since its original release. The film serves as a direct sequel to the anime and follows the characters Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, and Inosuke as they board a train to hunt a demon that has killed over forty demon hunters.
According to THR, when the “big-screen adaptation of the series hit Japanese cinemas this fall, conditions were ripe for a box office bonanza.” After Japan’s theaters reopened after a nationwide shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic audiences were eager for content and seeing that most North American releases had been rescheduled for a 2021 release, this allowed for a Japanese production to swoop in as a cinema savior.
The release of this film in Japan signifies that there’s hope for the North American market when everything begins to truly open up again, even if cinemas have reported a 96% drop in profits since last year. Recently, there has been talk that the state of cinema will be forever changed after COVID-19, relying more on streaming releases and blockbusters dominating the theaters even more than in previous years. Though there has already been a taste of releasing films in international markets with Wonder Woman 1984, that has already proven itself to be a failure, proving that stateside releases are important to the livelihood of cinema.
Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train is set to release in the United States in 2021.
Source: THR