Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero tops N. America box office with whopping $21 million

• “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” surpasses predictions with $21 million in North American ticket sales.
• Survival thriller “Beast” opened to a dismal $11.5 million from 3,743 North American theatres.
• “Top Gun: Maverick” placed fourth with $5.85 million from 2,969 locations.

“Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” debuted at the top of the box office, surpassing predictions with $21 million in North American ticket sales.

The production company Crunchyroll, which specialises in Japanese anime film and television, is behind the animation feature, which is currently playing on 3,007 screens. “Super Hero” is a crucial bright light amid August’s otherwise gloomy film offerings. The latest edition of “Dragon Ball Super” made twice as much as the weekend’s only new countrywide release, the survival thriller “Beast” starring Idris Elba and distributed by Universal. “Beast” opened to a dismal $11.5 million from 3,743 North American theatres while receiving mixed reviews.

“Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” is the most recent proof of the enthusiastic following for anime films in the United States, and Sony Pictures’ Crunchyroll has dominated the North American market. “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” grossed $17.6 million in its debut earlier this year, while “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” started with $21.2 million, which is even more astounding considering that theatres were still operating at limited capacity. However, these films tend to perform similarly to horror films in terms of ticket sales, with succeeding weeks exhibiting significant drops.

“Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” benefited from its overwhelming presence in premium formats, such as Imax, 4DX, and Dolby Cinemas. The film was shown on 327 Imax screens, resulting in $3.4 million in domestic ticket sales. These results represent the largest and highest-grossing opening weekend for an anime picture in Imax.

“This is another outstanding Crunchyroll anime opening. This has become an impressive niche theatrical business,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. But, he adds, “Crunchyroll movies play fast in the U.S.; their domestic multiples are low.”

Audiences, like reviewers, were divided on “Beast,” awarding it a mediocre “B” CinemaScore. In “Beast,” directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Korm?kur (“Adrift”), a newly widowed father and his two teenage daughters (Iyana Halley and Leah Jeffries) are pursued by a gigantic rogue lion. The film, whose production cost was $36 million, has grossed $10,2 million to date at the international box office.

After two consecutive weekends at the top of the domestic box office rankings, Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train” fell to third place. In its third weekend of release, the film grossed $8 million from 3,781 sites, bringing its domestic total to $68.9 million. This is a respectable outcome for a star-driven, creative action film in the current fragmented moviegoing environment. However, it cost $90 million to produce and many millions more to market to the audience, so it must continue to perform well in cinemas to justify its costly budget. Globally, “Bullet Train” has grossed $123 million after accumulating $60 million overseas.

In its 13th weekend of release, Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” placed fourth with $5.85 million from 2,969 locations. The upcoming home release of Tom Cruise’s blockbuster action sequel, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” has grossed an astounding $683 million to date, surpassing Marvel’s 2018 superhero epic “Avengers: Infinity War” ($678 million) as the sixth-highest grossing domestic film in history. “Maverick” has only spent one weekend outside of the top five on North American box office charts since its release during the Memorial Day weekend.

The Warner Bros. animated adventure “DC League of Super-Pets” placed fifth with $4.9 million at 3,537 locations. The family-friendly film has made $66.6 million in North America after four weeks in theatres.

“Bodies Bodies Bodies” earned an additional $2.4 million from 2,541 theatres, giving its domestic total to $7.4 million.

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