Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Infinity Castle dominated the weekend box office with the biggest domestic opening in history for an anime film.
Infinity Castle took in $70.6 million over the weekend domestically, around $49 million higher than the previous high for the Demon Slayer domestic releases. It crushes the previous record for an anime film set in 1999 by The Pokémon Movie, which made $31 million. Worldwide, Infinity Castle has made $387.1 million. The movie got an A Cinemascore, so Demon Slayer fans seemed to get exactly what they wanted from the latest movie. Anime films have been notoriously front-loaded, so we’ll have to see what kind of drop it has coming up this weekend.
Speaking of front-loaded, after one of the biggest openings in horror history, The Conjuring: Last Rites dropped 69% with another $25.6 million. It’s now at $130.5 million domestically and $332.6 million worldwide. Considering its modest budget of $55 million, it has already made over 6x that in two weeks.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale took third place with $18.1 million. That’s up from the previous Downton Abbey movie, 2022’s A New Era, which opened to $16 million. Worldwide, The Grand Finale has $30.4 million. It also received an A Cinemascore, and it could have fairly solid legs, as the demographics for it most likely skew older.
The Long Walk and Toy Story rounded out the top 5. The Long Walk took in $11.7 million, which is below some recent Stephen King adaptations like The Monkey or Doctor Sleep. It did have strong critical reviews but a B Cinemascore, so we’ll have to see what kind of hold it has in week 2. Toy Story returned to theaters to celebrate its 30th anniversary, earning $3.5 million. That brings its all-time domestic total to just over $196 million.
Further down the list, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues opened to $1.6 million in just under 2,000 theaters. That’s not particularly strong, but it could be a slow burn, given the audience’s older demographic, as the original film is over 40 years old. The Sound of Music was also back in theaters for its 60th anniversary and took in $1.6 million. Its all-time domestic gross is $164.8 million.
The best per-theater average went to Infinity Castle, which made $21,300 in each of the 3,315 theaters it played in.
