Demon Slayer Infinity Castle Tops U.S. Box Office with $70M Opening

Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba The Movie Infinity Castle opened in North American theaters this weekend to a staggering estimated $70 million, vaulting the anime feature to the top of the box office and setting a new record for the largest opening weekend ever for an anime film in the United States. The release, which reached U.S. screens Sept. 12 after debuting in Japan in July, outpaced other wide releases and pushed the franchise into rare blockbuster territory worldwide.

Industry trackers put the film’s North American Friday at roughly $33 million, with Saturday and Sunday grosses of about $21.6 million and $15.4 million respectively, and noted a heavy lift from premium large-format and IMAX screenings. Those same tallies, combined with international receipts, place the global total in the low- to mid-hundreds of millions so far, making the film one of the year’s most successful international releases. The weekend also helped revive overall September box office results after a slow late summer stretch.

Critics and audiences responded strongly. The review aggregator showed a roughly 97 percent fresh rating from critics, and audience polling firms recorded an A grade, with exit...