Huh. I never got a box office report up yesterday, did I? Well, let’s have one now.

Our number one movie is Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (which is technically not it’s full title, but it’s what I’ll be calling it here). Everyone knew this one was going to be big, but the range of forecasts was all over the place, since anime is still more or less a “niche” genre (for want of a better term) and hard to predict at the box office for that reason. In the end, Demon Slayer brought in an astonishing $70 million, easily the best opening for an anime film in the United States ever, taking the record that Pokémon: The First Movie had held onto for more than 25 years (granted, that’s without inflation, and it also opened on a Wednesday, but I digress).

Demon Slayer also had the best opening ever for an R-rated animated movie, the best opening ever for a foreign language release (the film is available both in Japanese with subtitles and in an English dub), and the best opening for an animated feature in 2025 so far. The only “downside” is that this was almost certainly extremely front-loaded. As I said, anime is still a “niche” (albeit a quite popular one), so the fans will show up as soon as they can. But it’s unlikely to branch out beyond that, unless you want to take your significant other to the film and spend thirty minutes explaining the lore to them.

Still, Infinity Castle has already surpassed the entire $50 million domestic gross of 2021’s Mugen Train, which opened as the box office was in COVID recovery and thousands of cinemas across the nation remained closed. As for the other two “movies” in the franchise, those were simply compilations of old and new episodes of the show, which is why they didn’t make much of a financial impact. Infinity Castle, for those not in the know, is intended to be the first in a trilogy of films to wrap up the TV series.

And speaking of TV shows, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the true “finale” to the beloved Masterpiece series (remember that weird time when two of the most popular shows in the world were on PBS?) brought in a respectable $19 million. That’s not nearly as strong as the premiere of the first theatrical film, but then again no one was expecting for it to be. Let’s face it, Downton Abbey isn’t the same without the late Maggie Smith (also, I love all of the characters on the series, but Lady Mary is far from my favorite, and she seems to be the main focus here).

Also “respectable” on a smaller scale this weekend is The Long Walk, which critics are absolutely salivating over (“Run, don’t WALK, to see this film!”). It brought in $11 million, which isn’t terrible considering the budget is said to be in the $20 million range, and given how brutal this film gets (you get to see teenagers get their brains blown out in graphic fashion over and over and over again), it’s really lucky to even be making it to the double digits.

Sadly, we do have a true flop this week in the form of the long-delayed Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which only brought in $2 million and translates to a lot of empty screens. I’m not sure why this was chosen for such a loaded weekend, but maybe the cult following for the original just isn’t as widespread as some assumed (or maybe they just didn’t even know it was playing. Seriously, where was the marketing for this?). In any case, it’s below the re-release of Toy Story, which managed to make it into the top five even with a mediocre $3.5 million take.

All of that being said, September is gangbusters so far! After a summer of blockbusters not living up to financial expectations, it’s amazing we’ve already had two such strong weekends in what is supposed to be a dry month at the box office.

Anyway, the top ten, via The Numbers