While roughly a third of the $93 million opening weekend of Swift’s 2023 smash hit “Eras Tour,” that was to be expected given that “Release Party of a Showgirl” is a lyric and music video compilation as opposed to the full concert film that “Eras Tour” was.

But like “Eras Tour,” this release party had virtually no marketing costs for AMC Theatres, as Swift’s immense social media presence did all the work getting the word out to the pop star’s loyal fans after the film was announced only two weeks ago.

It also serves as a needed replacement for theaters for Lionsgate’s “Michael,” which was previously set to release on this early October weekend but was moved to May 2026 to take advantage of an opportunity to become a summer launch title.

Taking second is Warner Bros.’ “One Battle After Another,” which is holding decently with an $11 million second weekend that’s a 50% drop from its $22 million opening. With just under $80 million grossed after eight days in theaters, it is already director Paul Thomas Anderson’s highest grossing film of his career.

But compared to past films from lead star Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle” is falling well short of his 2000s and 2010s offerings and is performing more consistent with the $68 million domestic/$158 million global total of his 2023 film “Killers of the Flower Moon.” This will mean that “One Battle” will likely have to ride its critical and cinephile acclaim to strong post-theatrical revenues to turn a profit, though the $4+ billion year Warner has had at the box office will cover any losses if it falls short.

The big dud of the week is A24’s “The Smashing Machine” with $2.6 million from 3,345 theaters on Friday, putting it in line for a $6.2 million opening weekend. For comparison, A24’s wrestling biopic “The Iron Claw” opened to $6.7 million over four days on Christmas weekend 2023 from 2,774 theaters.

While Dwayne Johnson has earned the best reviews of his career for his performance as MMA fighter Mark Kerr, “The Smashing Machine” is set to be the lowest opening weekend of his career, sliding below the $8.5 million 3-day Thanksgiving opening of his 2010 action film “Faster.”

Beyond his performance, reception for “The Smashing Machine” has been good but not great, earning Rotten Tomatoes scores of 73% critics and 79% audience alongside a B- on CinemaScore.

The post Taylor Swift’s ‘Release Party of a Showgirl’ Heads for $33 Million Box Office Weekend appeared first on TheWrap.

It’s been good advice, as all of Hollywood’s studios face a changed theatrical landscape where many countries, especially in Asia, have leaned increasingly more on local films as American film output has dropped amidst the pandemic and the 2023 strikes.

That changing landscape was a major topic of discussion at TheGrill’s box office panel — titled Big Screen, Big Questions: What’s Next for Theaters? — which Goldstein was a part of alongside his former Warner Bros. colleague and current Disney global distribution chief Andrew Cripps, as well as Regal/Cineworld CEO Eduardo Acuna.

“Eighty percent of Japan’s box office is local now; 90% of China’s box office is local,” Cripps said. “As Hollywood, we’re struggling to break through. We’ve got to make sure that we weave and dive and make sure you don’t come up against a local hit.”

Born and raised in Yokohama, Cripps is quite familiar with the Japanese box office, and he knows that it can be full of surprises. While anime films fill the all-time charts in that country, he points to the $104 million gross of “Kokuho,” a drama about the son of a slain Yakuza leader who is adopted by a kabuki master and taught the ways of Japanese theater.

“If you read the synopsis, you’d think that’s a small arthouse drama. But people are flocking to see it,” said Cripps. “The local teams pick up on that.”

With their work at Disney and Warner, Cripps and Goldstein are quite familiar with how Asia’s tastes in Hollywood’s offerings are changing. They each oversaw the release of summer superhero films, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Superman,” which sagged on that continent compared to past Marvel and DC films.

In South Korea, for example, the total for “Superman” was 59% down from the 2013 film “Man of Steel,” while the $4.6 million total for “First Steps” was down a staggering 78% from the $21 million grossed by the 2015 Marvel film “Ant-Man.”

But on the flip side, Warner Bros./Apple’s “F1” grossed an impressive $38.7 million in Korea, topping the $30 million the film grossed in one of Formula One’s biggest bastions of fandom, the United Kingdom. Disney is also expecting massive turnout in Asia for its two holiday offerings, “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

“The great thing about local teams is that when they see that something’s working, they quickly pivot and lean into it,” Goldstein said. “We’re so proud of ‘F1.’ We knew it would do very well outside of the U.S., but it was a surprise how much the audience in Korea embraced it. Once the word of mouth got out, the whole audience wanted to see it.”

“Korea’s market, it’s a little bit unique. I think audiences there wait to see what the reviews are going to be like,” added Cripps. “I think they wait to see what their fellow audience members are going to think, and then if it’s big, there’s a lot of FOMO and it becomes a collective experience, and you need to be part of that conversation. But it takes them a while to get there.”

On the exhibition side, Acuna agreed that while audience tastes are changing, his faith in the public’s enjoyment of moviegoing has never faded. While the summer 2025 box office remained flat in the U.S. compared to last year, he pointed to the surprise success of “Sinners,” as well as the anime record success of “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle,” as examples of films that become hits off of untapped parts of the audience.

“Five years ago, anime wasn’t on anybody’s radar. Now, look at how big it has become. Maybe we need to do more anime,” Acuna said. “There are some theaters we have where Hollywood films don’t do as well, but they succeed with other films, like one in New Jersey that makes or breaks on whether or not there’s an Indian film to screen.”

Catch up with all of TheWrap’s TheGrill 2025 coverage here. And watch the full Big Screen, Big Questions: What’s Next for Theaters? panel below:

The post Disney, Warner Bros. Execs Talk Facing Box Office Competition in Asia: ‘Trust Your Local Teams’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Released by Aniplex and Toho in Japan and Sony Pictures’ Crunchyroll internationally, the latest film from Ufotable’s acclaimed anime action series has become the first in history not produced in the English or Mandarin languages to gross more than $600 million worldwide.

On Tuesday, the film reached $617 million, passing the $615 global total of “Superman” to become the seventh highest grossing film this year. It needs roughly $18 million to pass Apple/Warner Bros.’ “F1” and Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon” remake to crack the top 5.

In the United States, “Infinity Castle” has passed “Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back” as the highest grossing anime film of all time with more than $120 million grossed. That’s higher than animated releases like “Bad Guys 2” and “Elio” and stands as Sony’s highest grossing film this year.

While a very unique case of a wildly popular anime series getting a theatrical release that is a direct continuation of the story arc playing out on TV, “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” shows how anime has become a global force at the box office. That has been aided by Sony’s commitment to releasing anime films on a regular basis in theaters and promoting those releases to subscribers of Crunchyroll’s streaming service.

Sony and Crunchyroll’s next anime release will be a film from the series “Chainsaw Man” on October 24, followed by Mamoru Hosoda’s fantasy film “Scarlet” in December.

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While expected to top the box office charts this weekend, tracking for “Release Party of a Showgirl” is hovering around $35 million. That’s little more than a third of the $93 million opening that “The Eras Tour” earned in 2023 en route to becoming by far the highest grossing concert film of all time with $261.6 million worldwide.

The reason is simple: a release party is not a concert film. “Release Party of a Showgirl” is highlighted by the premiere of her new music video for the single “The Fate of Ophelia,” along with lyric videos for the rest of the tracks on the album and behind-the-scenes clips on the making of the video and interviews with Swift.

By contrast, “The Eras Tour” offered a cinematic experience of a concert tour so wildly expensive and high in demand that it triggered fan lawsuits and a federal investigation into Ticketmaster’s de facto monopoly over the live entertainment market. Millions of Swifties priced out of seeing the pop star in person flocked to theaters to get a taste of the collective experience that only a concert can provide.

And while theaters still provide that appeal of gathering with fellow fans that fueled this month’s hits “The Conjuring: Last Rites” and “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle,” lyric and music videos obviously aren’t the same as a full-scale arena show.

Still, any revenue that Swift can bring to the box office will be welcome given that two major tentpoles that had been expected for release in October have decamped for May 2026. This weekend was the original release date for Lionsgate’s “Michael,” Antoine Fuqua’s biopic of Michael Jackson that is now in the early May weekend slot once held by “Avengers: Doomsday.”

Warner has also moved the video game film “Mortal Kombat II” from October to next May, lowering the ceiling on the box office potential for this month. In that context, a non-Hollywood alternative from Swift announced less than a month ago with a weekend total equivalent to the opening of “The Wild Robot” would be a welcome gap-filler.

Also opening this weekend is A24’s “The Smashing Machine,” a Benny Safdie sports biopic starring Dwayne Johnson as MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Johnson’s performance has been praised as a career best and potential Oscar contending one, and the film is expected to contend for the No. 2 slot alongside the second weekend of Warner Bros.’ “One Battle After Another,” which is projected to earn $10-11 million in the coming frame.

The post Don’t Expect Taylor Swift’s Album Release Party to Be An ‘Eras Tour’-Level Hit for the Box Office appeared first on TheWrap.

That is on the lower end of projections for director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first wide release, though there had been some hopes from exhibitors and rival distributors that the movie would open to $25 million or more. Instead, it is opening a couple steps below the $23.2 million opening for lead star Leonardo DiCaprio’s last film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” in 2023.

“Killers,” which like “One Battle After Another” had a tentpole-level budget, grossed $158.8 million at the global box office. “One Battle” has been reported to have a production spend of at least $130 million.

Even the best-case scenario for “One Battle” involves the film’s wild critical acclaim attracting moviegoers who aren’t familiar with Anderson’s work over the course of October and beyond. Largely driven by urban audiences, the opening night crowd for the film has given the movie excellent scores with an A on CinemaScore and a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 87% to go with a 97% from critics.

And with its already sealed status as an Oscar contender, the possibility now opens for Warner Bros. to find higher post-theatrical value from “One Battle” on premium on-demand and on HBO Max. But it’s going to be at least another weekend and likely longer before it is revealed whether the film has earned any substantial audience traction.

Regardless of how it does, “One Battle After Another” caps off a wildly successful year for Warner Bros., as it is currently leading all studios as the first one to cross $4 billion at the global box office this year. That is off the back of seven straight movies with domestic openings of $40 million or more, including its top grosser “A Minecraft Movie,” Apple blockbuster “F1,” DC’s reboot title “Superman,” a trio of New Line horror films led by “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” and another Oscar contender with “Sinners.”

Also opening this weekend is Universal/DreamWorks’ “Gabby’s Dollhouse,” a film adaptation of the hit Netflix kids’ series that is on course for a $13.6 million opening from 3,500 locations. It’s a decent result for a film appealing to the preschool crowd, albeit lower than the $22.7 million opening of Paramount’s “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” in September 2023. But like “Paw Patrol,” “Gabby’s Dollhouse” is a film that will make most of its profit from the merchandise connected to the franchise.

The post ‘One Battle After Another’ Opens to Muted $21 Million Box Office Launch Amidst Critical Acclaim appeared first on TheWrap.

With 11 Oscar nominations and the distinction of being the only filmmaker to win director awards at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals, Anderson’s three-decade career has elevated him to cult status among cinephiles and widespread acclaim and respect among his peers. But “One Battle After Another,” his tenth film, will be his first with a wide release.

To date, the highest screen count an Anderson film has ever received is 1,977, belonging to the film often regarded as his magnum opus: Paramount/Miramax’s “There Will Be Blood.” That Daniel Day-Lewis drama is also the highest grossing of his career with $40.2 million domestic and $77 million worldwide in 2007.

But here is “One Battle After Another,” getting a release on 3,500 screens worldwide including Imax, Imax 70mm and four select theaters screening the film in VistaVision.

With a cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn, as well as plenty of action scenes involving cars, guns and helicopters, this film is also Anderson’s most expensive with a production spend reported to be at least $130 million. But projections have the film earning a domestic opening weekend in the $20 million range.

It’s a grim theatrical outlook, but everything about “One Battle After Another” is right in line with the strategy developed by Warner Bros. under studio chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, who at the end of March were facing hot seat rumors. Since then, the only thing that’s been hot is Warner’s box office numbers, as the studio became the first in history to score seven straight $40 million-plus domestic opening weekends with films ranging from Legendary’s “A Minecraft Movie” to DC’s “Superman,” not to mention a trio of New Line horror films that have quietly become the connective tissue between Warner’s big tentpoles.

But perhaps the biggest win for Warner and its film co-chairs is Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” a film that raised a lot of C-suit eyebrows when De Luca and Abdy agreed to return the rights of the film to the “Black Panther” director in 25 years as part of a very creative-friendly deal.

The result: a $366 million global box office total that includes $278.5 million from the U.S./Canada, the highest for an original live action film since “Inception” — another Warner film — in 2010. “Sinners” is also set for an Imax re-release next month in time for Halloween, and could continue to be a major streaming asset for Warner as it is regarded by awards prognosticators as a lock to be a major Oscar contender.

And guess what: critics are loving “One Battle After Another” as much as they loved “Sinners.” With a staggering 98% Rotten Tomatoes score, the film is earning comparisons to “There Will Be Blood” as one of Anderson’s best, balancing crowd-pleasing action and intensity with a heartfelt father-daughter story and timely political themes about a society on the brink.

Now the question is whether “One Battle After Another” can draw in the masses the way “Sinners” did, and without the advantage of having a widely popular filmmaker behind one of the biggest superhero films ever made.

Of course, Paul Thomas Anderson does have a loyal following. His last film, “Licorice Pizza,” sold out dozens of screenings in New York and Los Angeles during its platform release on Thanksgiving weekend in 2021, and dozens of VistaVision screenings for “One Battle” in four theaters in Los Angeles, New York, Boston and London have already sold out.

But Anderson’s arthouse popularity isn’t the same as Coogler, who made “Sinners” after making a name for himself with “Creed” and two “Black Panther” films. By building his name through franchise blockbusters, Coogler cultivated a loyal audience similar to post-“Dark Knight” Christopher Nolan that followed him to his original work.

This allowed Warner Bros. to keep much of the plot details for “Sinners” under wraps and instead focus the marketing around Coogler and his star, Michael B. Jordan. Perhaps the most effective pre-release piece of marketing for “Sinners” was a viral video in which Coogler explained the difference between the various film formats “Sinners” would be presented in. Audiences responded to his passion and treated “Sinners” like a can’t-miss theatrical event.

With Anderson’s use of VistaVision — a long dormant format thrust back into the public eye thanks to last year’s Oscar-winning drama “The Brutalist” — being a prominent part of the marketing for “One Battle,” Warner Bros. is clearly trying to use early buzz from Anderson’s devotees combined with the aura of special formats like Imax 70mm to sell this film as a cinematic event.

But unlike “Sinners,” “One Battle” can’t turn to plot-light marketing. At CinemaCon back in April, several movie theater owners told TheWrap that they were very confused by Warner’s preview of the film, saying that it didn’t properly convey the film’s plot in lieu of a context-free scene in which DiCaprio’s character, a washed up ex-revolutionary named Bob, has a panicked phone call.

As the public campaign for “One Battle” has picked up, Warner has led with a trailer that puts the film’s premise front and center, as Bob scrambles to rescue his daughter after a foe from his revolutionary past comes back and kidnaps her.

While that trailer has played in front of recent Warner hits like “Weapons,” awareness and interest among audiences remains lukewarm. According to audience tracking data from Greenlight Analytics, “One Battle After Another” has an awareness level among survey moviegoers of 43% and an interest level of 46%. The one bright spot is that interest level among those who were aware of the film has risen over the past two weeks from 54% to 72%, suggesting that longtime fans of Anderson and DiCaprio are getting pulled in.

The ideal scenario for “One Battle” is a similar one to what “Sinners” carved out: get a solid opening weekend driven by the director’s biggest fans and then try to leg out over the next month from the effusive praise from those moviegoers and the critics.

This is where a relatively light wide release calendar for October could be an advantage, as the only four-quadrant tentpole coming next month is Disney’s “Tron: Ares,” which is looking at a $40-42 million domestic opening in early tracking when it comes out on Oct. 10.

Interestingly enough, there was a point where Warner did have a tentpole set for October with New Line’s “Mortal Kombat II,” only to move it to May 2026. Studio sources said at the time that the move was done in the hopes of replicating the mid-May success that “Final Destination: Bloodlines” had, especially given that “MK II” will have its biggest holdover competition upon opening from Lionsgate’s “Michael” rather than Marvel’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” which will be a holiday 2026 release.

Theaters have been looking anxiously for studios to deliver more films and have turned to alternative sources of programming, including a recently announced release party film for Taylor Swift’s next album “Life of a Showgirl” on October 3. The gaps that have been left behind by the drop in a consolidating Hollywood’s theatrical output have led to the inconsistency that has plagued the box office since the pandemic.

But for Warner, putting separation between “One Battle” and “Mortal Kombat II” could be advantageous for both films. “Sinners” legged out in the early summer against “The Accountant 2” and “Thunderbolts*,” a Marvel film that demonstrated that franchise’s declining interest among casual audiences. In a similar market without a clear blockbuster on the horizon, Warner no longer has to worry about two of its films cannibalizing each other.

Can LeoMania Rise Again?

If there’s any chance of “One Battle After Another” finding success in theaters, it will come down to whether DiCaprio can bring back the box office drawing power that served him well for nearly a quarter-century.

After “Titanic” turned the actor into a teenage heartthrob and gave rise to “LeoMania,” he made the career-changing move of pushing back against it with challenging drama roles in films from world-class directors like Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” and Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” in 2002. That move went on to make DiCaprio synonymous with film quality all the way through the end of the 2010s.

The list of hit dramas goes on and on: “The Departed,” “Inception,” “Django Unchained,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Revenant,” and most recently in 2019, “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.” His keen role choices and collaborations with proven filmmakers have given him a career box office total as a lead actor of $6.95 billion, with eight films — none of them franchise movies — that have grossed at least $350 million worldwide before inflation.

But since the pandemic, DiCaprio’s only theatrical role has been “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a 206-minute Scorsese film that grossed $156.4 million in 2023. His other film from this decade, “Don’t Look Up,” was a Netflix release on streaming only in 2021, though that film does still stand as the fourth most-watched Netflix film ever.

Studio sources have told TheWrap that DiCaprio’s lead star status is one of the major reasons why they believe “One Battle After Another” can draw an audience, but this will be the first time that the 50-year-old Oscar winner’s popularity as a movie star will be challenged in a radically changed entertainment space that has shifted even more away from star power than it was in the 2010s.

Ten years ago, DiCaprio won his Oscar with “The Revenant,” a film that grossed $533 million worldwide off mainstream buzz over scenes of the famously handsome actor eating an animal’s liver and getting mauled by a CGI bear. “One Battle After Another” sees him in a role that is not quite as grisly but is similarly unflattering. Whether it launches Paul Thomas Anderson into mainstream success will likely come down to whether that prospect is still of interest to the masses.

The post Can ‘One Battle After Another’ Become Warner Bros.’ Next Original Hit After ‘Sinners’? appeared first on TheWrap.

Despite a 76% drop from its record $70 million domestic opening — highest ever for an anime film — “Demon Slayer” is holding on against Universal/Monkeypaw’s “Him,” which is No. 2 with a $13.5 million opening from 3,168 theaters.

While Crunchyroll’s latest film is proving to be as frontloaded as all of the anime distributor’s offerings — two-thirds of the opening weekend tickets for “Demon Slayer” came from presales — the fanbase for this shonen franchise is so massive that “Infinity Castle” is now the highest grossing anime film ever with $104 million domestic and $555 million worldwide as well as Sony’s highest grossing film of any kind in 2025 with $269 million in Crunchyroll markets.

It is the sort of result that speaks both to the popularity of “Demon Slayer” and Sony’s cultivation of Crunchyroll as a hotspot for anime fans both on streaming and in theaters. With successful targeted digital marketing and trailers in front of Imax screenings this summer, “Infinity Castle” became a can’t-miss film for longtime fans as theaters became the only place for fans to see the latest chapter of the TV series’ current arc.

Farther down the charts, “Him” should break even for Universal against its reported $27 million net budget before marketing, but it is likely to have a short shelf life in theaters as critics have rejected the sports horror film with a 29% Rotten Tomatoes scores while audiences have given it a C- on CinemaScore.

The big bust of the weekend is another Sony release, the romantic fantasy “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” with an opening weekend outside the top 5 of just $3.5 million from 3,300 locations.

Despite sporting Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell in the lead roles and Kogonada in the director’s chair, “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” did not impress critics with its script, giving it a 37% Rotten Tomatoes score. Audiences were also tepid with a 58% RT score and a B- on CinemaScore, sealing the film’s fate as a bomb after Sony spent $45 million for it in a European Film Market deal.

Warner Bros./New Line’s “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is No. 3 with $12 million in its third weekend as it becomes the highest grossing film ever in the “Conjuring” franchise and the first to pass $400 million worldwide and $150 million domestic. As fellow New Line film “Weapons” is also set to pass $150 million domestic, Warner Bros. will have six films that have crossed that threshold in 2025.

Completing the top 5 are Lionsgate’s “The Long Walk” and Focus Features’ “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” both in a narrow race with $6.3 million each in their second weekend.

“The Long Walk” dropped just 46% from its $11.5 million opening as it now stands with a $22.7 million. That will make the Stephen King adaptation theatrically profitable for Lionsgate and puts it on pace for a domestic run similar to the $36 million total of the studio’s early-year release “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.”

“Downton Abbey,” meanwhile, took a bigger drop of around 65% from its $18 million opening but has still posted a respectable $31 million 10-day total, above the $28.3 million two-weekend total of the last “Downton” movie, “A New Era,” in 2022.

Overall grosses for the weekend stand at approximately $77 million, a 48% drop from the previous weekend as the shorter legs for “Conjuring” and “Demon Slayer” have combined with the weak reception for “Him” and “Journey” to bring the business slowdown that had been expected at the start of September.

But that could be eased next week with Universal/DreamWorks’ “Gabby’s Dollhouse” and Warner Bros.’ “One Battle After Another,” the latter of which is the first wide release for acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson and which has earned critical acclaim with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score. “One Battle” is currently projected for an opening weekend in the $20 million range.

The post ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ Becomes Biggest Anime Film Ever at US Box Office With $17.3 Million Weekend appeared first on TheWrap.

As “Demon Slayer” keeps rolling in the dough with a $70 million domestic total and more than $400 million worldwide, it is likely to pass summer blockbusters like “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Superman,” two offerings from a superhero genre that had the world in its grasp for more than a decade. But in Asia, anime and other local fare are dominating those markets.

The shift underscores the fading power and cachet of the Hollywood blockbuster in Asia, once a critical engine of box office revenue for the U.S. entertainment industry. It’s a dynamic driven by the gaps in films created by the COVID pandemic and the 2023 Hollywood strikes mixed with the rising power of entertainment coming out of countries like South Korea and Japan.

In 2019, all 10 of the highest grossing films of the year were from Motion Picture Association member studios, and the top six took more than 60% of their global gross from outside the United States. So far this year, only two of the nine MPA films in the top 10 have that same foreign share: Universal’s “Jurassic World Rebirth” with 60.6% and Warner Bros./Apple’s “F1” with 69%. By comparison, “Superman” and “Fantastic Four” have foreign shares of 42.5% and 47.3% respectively.

Another example of the move away from Hollywood: in his company’s latest earnings call, Imax CEO Rich Gelfond noted that non-Hollywood films comprised 40% of Imax’s box office for the first half of 2025 in large part because of “Ne Zha 2,” but also because of the premium format company’s focus on bringing more local language fare to theaters around the world.

Prior to this year, that percentage had never exceeded 20% for any given half, and so far Imax has grossed $316 million from screenings of local language films, shattering the record of $243 million recorded in 2023.

Daniel Loria, senior vice president of content strategy at Boxoffice, said the global box office had to adapt to the disruptive last few years. Countries like Japan and South Korea that already had mature local film industries leaned more on what they were producing to fill in the gaps left behind by Hollywood, and realized they didn’t need U.S. blockbusters as much.

“Most countries that have developed a robust local film industry have been able to rebound faster after the pandemic by being able to easily fill in the gaps Hollywood leaves behind,” Loria said. “And that makes those industries far more competitive than they were before the pandemic when Hollywood comes back.

China’s transition to a locally-driven market was helped along by its government reducing the number of Hollywood films approved for release in 2021. As TheWrap noted back in April, only eight Hollywood films have grossed more than $100 million in China in the past four years, and the highest grossing film there so far this year is “Jurassic World: Rebirth” with just $79 million.

But other countries didn’t need officials putting their thumb on the scale to make that transition to local fare. Economic imperatives did that on their own.

Japan is a prime example, as in 2024 only two Hollywood movies, Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4,” cracked the top 10 highest grossing films in that year, with “Inside Out 2” being the highest MPA film with $34.3 million in the No. 7 spot.

The highest grossing live-action Hollywood film in Japan was “Wonka” with $15.4 million, less than a third of the $50 million grossed by the highest grossing Japanese-produced film of 2024, “Kingdom 4: Return of the Great General,” which was produced by Toho with Sony Pictures International handling distribution.

In 2025, that trend has largely continued with seven of the top 10 highest grossing films in Japan so far being local films, with “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” earning an all-time record $213 million. “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” holds the top Hollywood spot at No. 5 with $35.7 million, just ahead of “Moana 2” with $35 million.

Korea is somewhat more balanced, with four of the top 10 for 2025 being Hollywood titles including the No. 1 with $38.9 million, “F1.” Just behind it is the local horror comedy “My Daughter Is a Zombie,” which sits at $38.2 million . Other top grossers from Hollywood in Korea include “Jurassic World Rebirth,” “Mission: Impossible 8,” and “Mickey 17,” the latter being Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s first film since his Oscar triumph with “Parasite.”

And then there’s Vietnam, where the top 5 highest grossing films of all time have been released since the pandemic with the top 3 coming out in the last 18 months. The highest grossing film in Vietnamese history, the war film “Red Rain,” is still in theaters with $21.2 million grossed and counting. That’s nearly double the $11.7 million that “Avengers: Endgame” grossed there before inflation adjustment.

With audiences in many parts of the world opting more for films made by and for their culture rather than the global four-quadrant fare coming from the U.S., it’s clear that the days of as many as nine films hitting $1 billion worldwide in a year, as they did in 2019, may be a thing of the past unless more Chinese productions join “Ne Zha 2” in becoming record-smashing hits in their home country. Aside from the $1.9 billion of that film, the only other $1 billion grosser so far this year is Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch,” though “Zootopia 2” has a strong chance to reach that mark while “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is a virtual lock to do so.

So if $800 million is the new $1 billion for studios, that will put even more pressure on Hollywood to budget their tentpoles accordingly and to get the most post-theatrical value out of those films as library additions, merch sellers and streaming service draws.

But what remains to be seen is how these changing overseas markets react if and when Hollywood returns to releasing 80 to 90 wide release films per year compared to the 65 to 70 that it is releasing now. It seemed as if the film industry was getting back to that rate as Amazon MGM committed to filling in the distribution slot left behind by 20th Century Fox’s acquisition of Disney.

But with Paramount now reported to be putting forth a bid to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, the possibility of Hollywood’s theatrical output remaining permanently capped by consolidation is very real. Four legacy studios plus Amazon MGM will not be able to deliver the number of films that the industry once put forth in the 2010s, leaving plenty of opportunities for studios from Toho to CJ Entertainment to fill in the gaps.

The post The Rise of ‘Demon Slayer’ Coincides With Hollywood’s Box Office Decline in Asia appeared first on TheWrap.

Eight years after Sony acquired the anime streaming service and came up with the plan to bring select titles from it to theaters, Crunchyroll has hit new heights with this globally popular shonen series as it has earned a $70 million opening weekend from 3,315 locations, shattering the U.S. anime opening weekend record set 26 years ago by “Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back” even after inflation adjustment.

Box office trackers had expected a still strong $40-45 million start for “Demon Slayer,” but exhibition sources told TheWrap that a $60 million-plus start was a real possibility based on presales, even though they also said that those presales are making up roughly two-thirds of all ticket sales for “Demon Slayer” this weekend.

That suggests that like nearly all anime films, “Demon Slayer” will quickly drop off at the box office after this weekend. But to even land a weekend this strong shows how this franchise stands alongside the likes of “Dragon Ball,” “Pokemon” and “One Piece” as one of anime’s most globally popular and why Crunchyroll has become a key part of Sony’s theatrical strategy.

It also is a big boost to theaters who were expecting a slower September without a big tentpole like last year’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” to support business. But “Demon Slayer,” combined with the $84 million launch of “The Conjuring: Last Rites” last weekend, has given theaters the same level of box office grosses that “Beetlejuice 2” earned on its own, keeping September’s monthly grosses on par with 2024.

Speaking of “Conjuring: Last Rites,” the Warner Bros./New Line horror film has earned a $26.1 million second weekend at the box office, bringing its total to $131 million domestic and $333 million worldwide. While this second weekend total is a steep 69% drop from its franchise record opening weekend, it is still the highest second weekend ever for a “Conjuring” film.

In third is Focus Features’ “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” with an $18.1 million opening weekend from 3,694 theaters. While well below the $31 million start of the 2019 “Downton Abbey” film, it is slightly above the $16 million start of “Downton Abbey: A New Era” in 2022.

Lionsgate’s “The Long Walk” is in fourth with an $11.5 million opening from 2,845 locations, a solid result against its reported $20 million budget. With Rotten Tomatoes scores of 90% critics and 85% audience, “The Long Walk” will try to leg out off of its word-of-mouth despite being a film as bleak as the Stephen King novel it is adapted from, competing next week against Universal/Monkeypaw’s occult sports horror film “Him.”

Completing the top 5 is Disney/Pixar’s 30th anniversary re-release of “Toy Story,” which earned $3.5 million this weekend. Much farther down the charts in tenth is Bleecker Street’s “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” which earned just $1.6 million from 1,920 locations. Critics skewed positive towards Rob Reiner’s mockumentary legacyquel to his 1984 skewering of metal bands with a 67% Rotten Tomatoes score while fans of the original gave it an A- on CinemaScore.

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While Sony is projecting a $35 million opening weekend for “Infinity Castle,” independent trackers are projecting a $40 million-plus start for the film, which will have Imax support. That would be enough to make “Infinity Castle” the highest anime opening weekend in American history before inflation adjustment.

That record belongs to the 1999 film “Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back,” released at the height of the Nintendo franchise’s cultural popularity and earning a Fri.-Sun. $31 million unadjusted opening as part of a $50 million 5-day launch. Adjusted for inflation, that FSS total equates to $60 million, which might seem like too much to ask of “Infinity Castle.”

But Daniel Loria, senior vice president of Content Strategy and Editorial Director of Box Office Pro, said that exhibitors who contribute to his site’s box office projections are extremely optimistic about “Infinity Castle,” reporting presales far beyond what they have ever seen for an anime film.

And while Loria reiterated that a $40 million weekend would qualify as success, those exhibitors tell him they believe it’s possible for “Infinity Castle” to clear $60 million, which would not only surpass previous anime record holder “Mewtwo Strikes Back” after inflation but set up the film to pass the $70 million total run of “28 Years Later” and become Sony’s highest grossing film in a “Spider-Man”-free 2025.

“The fact that such a figure is even on the table shows how big ‘Demon Slayer’ is and just how far anime has grown as a theatrical force,” Loria said.

Four years ago, the last “Demon Slayer” movie, “Mugen Train,” became one of the films that helped theaters get back into business after a year of COVID closures, earning a $21.2 million opening weekend and a $49.5 million overall U.S. total.

But that pales in comparison to what “Mugen Train” did in the rest of the world, particularly in Japan, where it was released in October 2020 at the height of the pandemic yet grossed 40.7 billion yen, or $386 million. That allowed it to break the record held for 19 years by “Spirited Away” to become Japan’s highest grossing film of all time, and with a global total of $506 million, it stands as the highest grossing anime film ever.

“Demon Slayer: Mugen Train” cemented the franchise, which first debuted as a manga in 2016 and follows a group of skilled Taishō era warriors tasked with hunting evil demons, as the latest global phenomenon to arise from the action-packed shonen subgenre of anime, joining the likes of “Dragon Ball,” “Naruto” and “One Piece.” It also established anime’s rising grossing power at the global box office, which Sony sought to capitalize on when it acquired anime streaming service Crunchyroll in 2017.

“Mugen Train” seemingly came out of nowhere, with Crunchyroll Executive Vice President Mitchell Berger telling TheWrap that his old connections in traditional Hollywood asked him where this came from.

Now, “Infinity Castle” is set to blow past the bar set in the U.S. by “Mugen Train,” hitting domestic theaters after grossing $295 million internationally — including $203 million in Japan, the third highest of all time.

“Infinity Castle” is the first of a trilogy of films that promises to conclude the “Demon Slayer” story. To get a sense of what this means for fans, imagine if “Game of Thrones” ended its adaptation with a series of films instead of the rushed last few seasons. 

Even if it doesn’t hit the heights suggested by Loria, “Demon Slayer” will help shore up theaters to get them through a slower October that is devoid of “Michael” and “Mortal Kombat II,” two films that had been slated to open next month but moved to May 2026.

Also opening this weekend is Lionsgate’s “The Long Walk,” Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Stephen King’s first — and still arguably his bleakest — novel. The film is projected for an opening in the low-to-mid teens, with Lionsgate projecting at least a $10 million start for this dystopian R-rated horror film with a reported $20 million budget.

Starring Mark Hamill as an Army major in a totalitarian U.S. where 50 young men walk endlessly until one remains, “The Long Walk” has earned critical acclaim as one of the best King adaptations ever with a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.

But even in their praise, critics have warned that Lawrence pulls no punches in bringing the relentless, horrifying violence of King’s novel to the big screen, putting a limit on its box office potential. Still, the movie is set to turn a respectable profit at a time when Lionsgate’s film division has improved from its streak of slumps this time last year but is still searching for more consistent theatrical performance.

For those in older age demographics, or just looking for something without katanas or machine guns, Focus Features is offering “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” As its name suggests, it is the final chapter in the “Downton Abbey” saga, which began 15 years ago with a TV series that ran on ITV in the U.K. and PBS in America for six seasons before jumping to theaters with two films in 2019 and 2022.

The first “Downton” film opened to $31 million and went on to a $96.8 million domestic and $194 million global total, including $34.4 million in Britain. But the 2022 follow-up “A New Era” was far more muted with a $16 million opening for $44.1 million domestic and $92.6 million worldwide.

“The Grand Finale,” which is meant as a fond farewell for and to “Downton” devotees is projected for a similar $15-17 million opening this weekend from 3,673 theaters. Reviews have been widely positive with a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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