Aniplex and Crunchyroll of America’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – To the Swordsmith Village grossed $10.1 million this weekend in 1,780 theaters. That’s a fourth place finish at the domestic box office but still half the opening of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train which opened to a smash $21
Animation
Illumination Entertainment/Universal’ movie’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie will be opening around the world on Wednesday, April 5, before Easter weekend. It had been set for Good Friday, April 7. In what is arguably expected to be one of the biggest openings of the spring, the animated film featuring Chris Pratt, Chris Day, Anya Taylor-Joy,
Friday Afternoon: It’s not anime that will have the upper hand at the weekend box office, but the People’s Champion. Dwayne Johnson’s New Line DC movie Black Adam is looking to bring in a third Friday of $3.7M-$4.3M for what looks to be a $14M-$16M third weekend at 3,985 theaters, -45% for a running total
Global anime destination Crunchyroll will release the anticipated One Piece Film Red in the U.S. and Canada on Nov. 4. The film, produced by Toei Animation and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda, will hit theaters in Australia and New Zealand the day before, on Nov. 3, following a release in Austria and Germany Oct. 13.
Pixar has dropped the concept art for its next feature, Elemental, which will hit theaters on June 16, 2023. Disney already had the Father’s Day weekend date reserved for an untitled Pixar film. Directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur, Partly Cloudy short) and produced by Denise Ream (The Good Dinosaur, Cars 2), Elemental journeys alongside
EXCLUSIVE: A24 has dated two recent festival faves for theatrical release this summer: the Jenny Slate animated comedy Marcel the Shell With Shoes On on June 24 and the horror comedy feature Bodies Bodies Bodies on Aug. 5. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On made its world premiere at Telluride last fall and recently played SXSW.
Disney will continue to embrace the theatrical window over the Thanksgiving stretch with the Jared Bush/Byron Howard/Charise Castro Smith-directed Colombia-set animated musical Encanto which is looking to hook families with a $35M-$40M five-day domestic start and another $35M+ overseas as the movie debuts day-and-date in all offshore territories except China, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines and Vietnam.
Iconic Events Releasing, the event cinema company behind theatrical releases for the Emmy-winning Bo Burnham: Inside and this week’s one-night-only showing of David Byrne’s American Utopia, is teaming with kids entertainment company Pinkfong Baby Shark to release Pinkfong & Baby Shark’s Space Adventure in theaters next month. Via the deal with Pinkfong Baby Shark parent
UPDATED with TIFF exit: Clifford the Big Red Dog, Paramount’s CG/live-action movie that was unset from its planned September 17 release, will also not world premiere at next month’s Toronto Film Festival. It had been set as a Gala Presentation via the pic’s Canadian rightsholder eOne, which confirmed the news today that it was removing
Paramount Pictures has curbed the planned September 17 release of Clifford the Big Red Dog, its CGI/live-action take on the beloved kidlit character. We hear that the studio is looking for a more family-friendly release date for the pic, which also had been announced as a Gala Presentation at the Toronto Film Festival in September. The title’s
EXCLUSIVE: In a recent Samba TV measurement, 783K U.S. households tuned into Universal’s The Boss Baby: Family Business on the studio’s streaming service Peacock over the four-day July 4th holiday weekend. That number for the DreamWorks Animation title beats the four-day Memorial Day debut of Disney’s live-action pic Cruella on Disney+ Premier, which clocked 686K U.S. households that
UPDATED: Netflix said Wednesday that My Little Pony: A New Generation will debut on the streamer on September 24, 2021, the same date it had been planned to premiere when the eOne animated pic was set up at Paramount. Netflix acquired global rights in February when the pandemic was wrecking havoc with movie theaters. The
As the motion picture industry looks to get back on track at the box office, and avoid being the laughing stock of streamers, the latest question begged is: What was Sony thinking when they decided to move Hotel Transylvania: Transformania onto the Oct. 1-3 opening weekend of MGM’s Addams Family 2? Both Halloween-centric animated movies
EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has licensed all global rights, sans China, to Sony Pictures Animation’s Vivo. The movie, directed by Oscar nominee Kirk DeMicco (The Croods) and co-directed by Brandon Jeffords (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2) with new songs written and performed by Tony award winning Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, was recently scheduled for a theatrical
2ND UPDATE, 12:12 PM: The bunny trail is busy again. Sony said today that its Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is moving up two weeks from Fourth of July weekend to June 18. The move comes just hours after after Paramount announced that its Top Gun: Maverick exited its July 2 slot and Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge is taking that
Scoring another record with a local title in Japan, IMAX has had its best opening day ever for a film there with Shin Evangelion. Overall, the movie, which is the fourth and final installment in the Rebuild Of Evangelion series, grossed nearly 828M yen ($7.6M). Of that, the IMAX portion was $740K. The sci-fi animated
The next My Little Pony movie has just been picked up by Netflix in a global rights deal excluding China. Paramount was set to release the movie on Sept. 24. The pic is from eOne’s animation outfit Boulder Media, directed andby Rob Cullen and Jose Ucha, with co-director Mark Fattibene. Cecil Kramer and Peter Lewis produced. A
Refresh for latest…: DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Croods: A New Age led the weekend in China with a $19.2M debut, outpacing local titles One Second and Caught In Time. This is the third best bow for a studio movie in the Middle Kingdom during the pandemic era (behind Tenet and Mulan). In total, the Croods sequel
Thanksgiving Week just got a lot more grim at the box office as Disney on Thursday moved its bit Pixar movie Soul to Disney+, where it will now be released on December 25. It had been set for a November 20 release in domestic theaters. The Soul release date move was expected following the departure
Skydance and Paramount Pictures today announced that original animated musical fantasy Spellbound, which Paramount Pictures has committed to co-finance and release globally, is now slated for November 11, 2022. Skydance Animation’s first original feature film, Luck, will be released domestically on February 18, 2022 with a worldwide rollout to follow. Today’s announcement marks the continued
When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end
As more studios experiment with bringing high-quality pics into the home during the current COVID-19 home quarantine, Warner Bros is jumping into the mix by fast-tracking its animated pic Scoob! onto PVOD and premium digital ownership on May 15 in the U.S. and Canada. The Tony Cervone-directed feature animated take on the famed Hanna-Barbera cartoon TV
When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that
In what is considered an anomaly in the industry for an on-demand rental title (not sellthrough): Dreamworks Animation/Universal’s Trolls World Tour is now available for pre-order on FandangoNOW in advance of the pic’s April 10 availability date. While pre-orders for sell-through titles like Bad Boys for Life are quite common, that’s not the case with VOD rental titles. In
EXCLUSIVE: Disney/Pixar’s family film Onward has been banned in multiple Middle East markets due to the film’s minor reference to a lesbian relationship. In the movie, about two teenage elf brothers in a mythical world who embark on a quest for magic, there is a passing reference to an LGBTQ relationship between two secondary characters.
EXCLUSIVE: Klaus, Ford v Ferrari, and animated shorts Sister and Hair Love repped Oscar nominations earned by alumni of The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) yesterday. Since the creation of the Best Animated Feature Oscar category in 2001, 12 of the winning films were directed by CalArts alums with the last seven consecutive Animated
After becoming Disney’s 6th film of the year to cross the $1B threshold worldwide when it hit the milestone in mid-December, Frozen 2 has now capitalized on holiday play to become the biggest animated movie of all time globally. With an estimated $1.325B, the Chris Buck/Jennifer Lee-helmed sequel has iced the previous record holder, Frozen
Paramount is putting its Rugrats movie in timeout. The studio said today that it has pulled the Nick TV adaptation from its schedule after originally setting a January 29, 2021, release date. Taking over that weekend slot is Rumble, the toon from Paramount Animation and WWE Studios that is set in a world where monster wrestling is a global
Sony said Friday that the sequel to its Oscar-winning animated pic Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse will hit theaters on April 8, 2022. The studio also said that another Sony Pictures Animation project, the musical adventure tale Vivo with original songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, is being pushed back five months to April 2021. The original Marvel/Columbia
EXCLUSIVE: It’s happening. No, not Cousin It, rather MGM/UAR are already planning a sequel to this past weekend’s animated hit The Addams Family with a release date of Oct. 22, 2021. Currently there are no other wide entries on that date. With Columbus Day holiday in effect and 42% K-12 schools off yesterday, the Conrad Vernon-Greg