Box Office: ‘One Piece Film: Red’ Scores Historic Debut In Japan, ‘Super-Pets’ Holds Strong In North America
An otherwise predictable weekend of box office movement was highlighted by the exceptional Japanese premiere of One Piece Film: Red.
According to Crunchyroll, which will distribute the film in North America, Australia, and New Zealand this fall, the animated feature made a big splash over the weekend when it grossed an estimated 2.25 billion yen ($16.63 million). That total is good for the second-best two-day opening for a Japanese film at the domestic box office after Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train, which raked in 3.3 billion yen when it opened in October 2020.
There is a caveat, however. Both Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen 0, now third place on the two-day opening list, opened on Fridays, while One Piece opened on a Saturday. If Friday totals are included as part of the opening weekend, One Piece Film: Red falls to third place all-time, with Jujutsu Kaisen 0 passing it for second.
In North America, Warner Bros.’ DC League of Super-Pets comfortably held the second spot at the box office, replaced in first by Bullet Train. Super-Pets saw a 51.3% drop from last week’s haul, with the film earning an estimated $11.2 million over the weekend. Its domestic total now sits at $45.1 million. Globally, Super-Pets scored another $11.4 million from 67 markets for a 41% drop. The film’s offshore gross is $38.3m for a worldwide total of $83.4m. The film had a budget in the neighborhood of $90 million.
Minions: The Rise of Gru was just able to hold off Top Gun: Maverick to round out the domestic top five, grossing $7.1m over the weekend. The film was third at the global box office, generating $23 million in ticket sales worldwide. The big Minions news however, is that today Universal announced that on August 19, the film will get a Chinese theatrical release. With $757.9m global already in the bank, Rise of Gru will get closer to the one-billion box office mark than any theatrical animation release since Frozen 2.
Meanwhile, A24’s muted rollout of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On looks to be coming to an end. The film was dropped from 323 of the 821 theaters it played in last week, and saw a 50.1% drop in ticket sales, only managing to gross $318,150 over the weekend. It’s total box office now sits at $4.9 million.
Paramount’s Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank was dropped from more than 75% of the theaters in which it played last weekend and saw corresponding 80.7% drop in gross week-on-week. The film only generated $147,488 in ticket sales, for a total of $17.5 million.
Lightyear was still playing in 280 theaters over the weekend, but only managed $87,000 in sales. Now on Disney+, the film’s remaining theatrical run hardly seems noteworthy.
And lastly, Oscilloscope’s Claydream grossed $4,550 at its exclusive opening at New York’s Quad Cinema. The film, a documentary about Oscar-winning Claymation creator Will Vinton, will now expand to Los Angeles and Portland (where Vinton’s studio was located) before a wider rollout over the coming weeks.
