The weekend has gone quite different for Universal, as their latest release, Beast starring Idris Elba was overtaken by the Japanese anime film, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The film ends its weekend with around $20.1M+ at the US box office, which could even go higher once Sunday wraps up. According to Crunchyroll, the sequel is the best global opening ever for an anime film.
Tetsuro Kodama is in the director’s chair based on a story by the series creator Akira Toriyama, it is the 21st entry in the Dragon Ball cinematic franchise. The last time we saw a film from it was back in 2018 focused on a new adaptation of Broly. This time around, they went with a CG-animated style with Toei Animation producing it.
To put into comparison, Broly opened to $9.8M domestically, which the latest release managed to double. Baltasar Kormakur’s Beast, on the other end, opened to $11.6M which is still part of its tracking and joins the ever-increasing B CinemaScore club of 2022.
It’s quite interesting that it was overtaken with barely any new competition in the market. Top Gun: Maverick is still performing incredibly well and Thor: Love and Thunder has picked up the pace even with a harsher drop like its predecessors. Bullet Train has still been holding on and A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies remained in the top ten. August is quite empty but it seems the projects are still holding on quite well.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
