Box Office Report: ‘Boonie Bears’ Closes In On Franchise Record In China, ‘Haikyu’ Posts Japan’s Biggest Opening Weekend Of 2024

The U.S. box office may be off to a sluggish start in 2024, especially when it comes to animation, but things are looking far better in other parts of the world. China and Japan have had big theatrical animation releases in recent weeks that are putting up impressive numbers.

China

Boonie Bears: Time Twist followed up its massive $61 million opening weekend with a $50.5 million sophomore frame, bringing the film’s 9-day cumulative box office total to a staggering $207.7 million.

Boonie Bears is China’s most lucrative animated franchise and has released 10 films over the past 10 years. After just nine days, Time Twist is already the franchise’s second-highest-grossing feature and is a lock to pass the $220.2 million lifetime gross of last year’s Boonie Bears: Guardian Code.

Japan

Another one-territory wonder, Toho’s Haikyu!! The Movie Decisive Battle at the Garbage Dump was released in Japan over the weekend and pulled in an impressive 2.23 billion yen ($14.9 million). It finished the weekend in first place in attendance rankings, the favored metric in Japan, and had the highest gross of any Japanese release this year. According to Crunchyroll, Haiku had the sixth biggest opening weekend in Japanese box office history. Among anime titles, it was the fifth biggest opening weekend, behind One Piece Film: Red.

Haiku is produced and distributed by Toho, with animation handled by Production I.G. The film was written and directed by Susumu Mitsunaka. A second film is said to be on the way soon, although no release date has been announced yet. The film is based on a popular volleyball-themed manga. Sports-based films have done well for Toho, which topped Japan’s 2023 box office with The First Slam Dunk.

Domestic

Illumination’s Migration refused to be displaced from the domestic top five box office list during its ninth weekend in cinemas and even moved up a spot from fifth last weekend to fourth this weekend. Despite being dropped from 229 theaters, Migration saw a 27.7% increase in gross week-on-week and made $3.8 million. That brings the film’s total domestic gross to $114.8 million.