Without Spider-Man on the slate, it looked like Sony’s box office fortunes were going to be quite muted for 2025. But Crunchyroll’s release of “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” is giving the studio a huge September weekend.
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.
