Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train faced little or next to no competition as it absolutely crushed the box office since its Japanese premiere. However, over on American shores, it would come up against some fearsome "kombatants." Over the past weekend, Demon Slayer finally claimed victory over Mortal Kombat.
In the opening weekend for both movies, Mortal Kombat narrowly beat Demon Slayer, with a $22.5 million haul vs. the anime film’s $19.5 million. Nevertheless, Demon Slayer clinched the best debut for a non-English movie in United States history. Mortal Kombat has received mostly mixed reviews from critics, with reception rating it anywhere from terrible to decent video game adaptation. Meanwhile, Demon Slayer has been almost unanimously praised for the way it builds on the anime’s many characters ahead of the series’ second season.
Although both movies dipped significantly from last week’s earnings (around 70%), Demon Slayer closed on a $6.4 million weekend run that edged out Mortal Kombat's $6.2 million. These are naturally small numbers when compared to box office results prior to the pandemic, yet they remain a sign of encouragement for struggling movie theaters that are just starting to re-open in the wake of massive vaccination rollouts, with nearly 60% of cinema locations currently open for business in North America.
Of course, both movies’ performance was affected by elements unique to each. For Mortal Kombat, it’s the fact that the film can be readily streamed on HBO Max for only $14.99, so many more people have watched it at home rather than in theaters. On the other hand, Demon Slayer arrived in the US without an English dub and American audiences have never been that fond of subtitles.
Though anime purists do tend to prefer undubbed versions of their favorite Japanese imports, Demon Slayers still caters to an even more niche audience than Mortal Kombat, which was already a video game movie at its heart. Regardless of that, as anime becomes more and more mainstream, even in the midst of a still ongoing pandemic scenario, Demon Slayer managed to become the highest-grossing anime film in North America, after surpassing Dragon Ball: Super Broly, with very few doubting its likelihood to clinch first place had circumstances been different.
The biggest upcoming non-HBO Max releases to follow Demon Slayer are probably Cruella, A Quiet Place 2, Fast and Furious 9, and Marvel Studios' Black Widow, with two of those also serving as testing scenarios for Disney Plus $30 Premium purchases. No matter the outcome, it seems that it will still be a while before audiences start showing up to theaters on levels that come close to matching pre-Covid numbers.
Demon Slayer and Mortal Kombat are now playing in theaters.
Source: Variety