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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Film Opens at #1 With Estimated US$20.1 Million

Crunchyroll reported on Sunday that the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero anime film has earned an estimated US$20.1 million to top its opening weekend in North America. The weekend box office alone would make it the #6 highest-grossing anime film ever at the U.S. box office.

The film earned US$4,303,671 on Thursday (its preview day), US$6,584,653 (revised numbers) on Friday, US$5,768,686 on Saturday, and an estimated US$3,450,000 on Sunday. It opened on over 4,000 screens in over 3,100 theaters, including those with premium IMAX, 4DX, Dolby Cinemas, MX4d, and DBox. It earned US$3.4 million on 327 IMAX screens — a record IMAX U.S. opening for anime films. 17% of the film's weekend total came from IMAX screenings, and 40% came from all premium large format screenings (including IMAX and its competitors).

The film is the third anime film to top the U.S. weekend box office, and it is #3 in highest U.S. opening, after Pokémon: The First Movie with US$31,036,678 in 1999 and Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train with US$21,234,994 in 2021. The only anime films to earn more in their final U.S. box office totals are Pokémon: The First Movie, Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, Pokémon 2000 - The Movie, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and Jujutsu Kaisen 0.

Comscore/Screen Engine's PostTrak reports that 85% of attendees enjoyed the film, and 75% would recommend it to others. The early audiences were 37% Hispanic and Latino, 26% Caucasian, 21% Black, and 16% Asian/other.

Comparatively, Dragon Ball Super: Broly earned US$9.8 million in its opening weekend in 1,236 theaters in the U.S. and Canada.

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero opened in Japan on June 11. The film sold about 498,000 tickets for about 670 million yen (about US$4.99 million) in its first two days. The film has earned 2,442,861,650 yen (about US$18.11 million) as of August 7.

Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures are screening the film in theaters worldwide this summer, with the widest opening ever for an anime film. The film opened in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland on Friday. The screenings include both the original Japanese audio with subtitles and with a dub. The companies will distribute the film in "all continents, including North America, Latin America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (excluding Japan)" in 13 dubbed languages and 29 subbed languages.

Tetsuro Kodama directed the film, and Naoki Satō composed the music. Nobuhito Sue was the art director, Chikashi Kubota was the animation director, and Jae Hoon Jung was the CG director. Dragon Ball original manga creator Akira Toriyama worked on the film's original story, screenplay, and character designs.

Sources: Press release, Box Office Mojo, Deadline