When the major studios zig, other theatrical distributors zag, and in this instance that means taking advantage of putting a wide release out there when the majors were too scared to do so earlier this year with all the Omicron mixed messages. Crunchyroll (ne Funimation) has the anime movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0 which racked up $2.88M in previews last night from 2,003 locations, juiced by 49 Imax auditoriums.
The movie, directed by Seong-Hu Park, is the prequel to the smash-hit dark fantasy action anime from Gege Akutami, which was named Anime of the Year at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2021. The pic will expand to 2,748 theaters today, 109 of those being Imax, in U.S. and Canada and industry estimates are pegging at least a $10M start for the movie. These anime movies are typically frontloaded greatly, so it’s a challenge to predict the fall-off on Saturday. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 has already grossed $100M over in Japan after its release at the end of 2021. The pic also hits UK, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland this weekend as well. Latin America and Germany will go in the next few weeks.
Back in late April last year, Funimation had Demon Slayer which racked up $3.8M in Thursday previews before making $9.5M on Friday, $21.2M in a box office battle royale with New Line’s Mortal Kombat which won the weekend with $23.2M.
The anime series Jujutsu Kaisen is based on the best-selling manga of the same title, serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump and has sold over 60 million copies in Japan. In the US, the series is published by VIZ Media. Pic follows Yuta Okkotsu, a nervous high school student, who enrolls in the mysterious Tokyo Jujutsu High School under the guidance of Satoru Gojo after being haunted by the curse of his childhood friend.
A24 also has the horror movie X which they debuted at SXSW this past week, and that pic is going wide at 2,865 theaters instead of going limited. The Ti West directed and written movie, which follows a group of young filmmakers who are making an adult film in rural Texas 1979, but are busted by their elderly hosts, is looking to gross between $3M-$4M. Ti West already shot a prequel as he announced at SXSW.
Reigning champ of this weekend will, natch, be Warner Bros.’ The Batman, which is eyeing around a 30% dip from last weekend’s $66.5M in its third go-round here (figure around $46M). Last night the pic clocked an estimated $5M, -13% from Wednesday, bringing its two week total to $263.2M. The Matt Reeves-directed pic should easily be past $300M by Sunday, or worst case, Monday.