Japanese animated film “Demon Slayer” had the best start ever in North America for a foreign language film this weekend, a step further after having already set the Japanese box office record.
Directed by the Aniplex studio, a subsidiary of the Japanese giant Sony, “Demon Slayer” (demon slayer) has gleaned 19.5 million dollars in revenue in the United States and Canada, according to the specialist company Exhibitor Relations.
The cartoon dethroned Zhang Yimou’s Chinese film “Hero,” which raised $ 17.8 million in its first weekend in theaters in North America in August 2004.
It is the continuation of the beautiful course of “Demon Slayer”, which broke, at the end of December, the record of receipts in Japan. According to data from the specialized site Box Office Mojo, its counter currently displays 365 million dollars in tickets sold in the Japanese market alone.
The film tells the story of Tanjiro, a teenager living in Japan during the Taisho era (1912-1926), who becomes a demon hunter after the slaughter of his family by these creatures thirsty for human blood. The manga had already been the subject of a serial adaptation, the first episodes of which were released in 2019.
Although an animated film, the film was rated “R”, meaning that minors under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult.
Despite this historic start, “Demon Slayer” was beaten this weekend by another outing. “Mortal Kombat”, inspired by the video game of the same name, grossed $ 22.5 million at the North American box office.
The film’s simultaneous launch on the online video platform HBO Max did not prevent the film from achieving the second best launch since the start of the pandemic, behind “Godzilla vs. Kong”, which had grossed $ 31 million. returned for its first weekend in theaters in early April.
The box office performance of the ten most viewed films this weekend is the best since early March 2020, a sign that the cinema is making a significant comeback in the United States, thanks to the reopening of theaters and the success of the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus.
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