‘Jujutsu Kaisen 0’ Leads Busiest Specialty Box Office Weekend in Months
21.03.2022 - 02:43
/ thewrap.com
While the threat of another industry-crippling COVID-19 wave still looms, the end of this past winter’s Omicron surge has given new hope to indie and specialty distributors trying to get moviegoers back into arthouses. But like the wider blockbuster scene, the biggest specialty success was driven by younger moviegoers with “Jujutsu Kaisen 0,” which scored another victory for Sony’s import wing Crunchyroll.
In recent years, Sony has been able to consistently draw anime fans to theaters with releases of highly anticipated film adaptations of hit TV series like “Dragon Ball Super: Broly,” “My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission” and, most recently, “Demon Slayer: Mugen Train,” which launched last year to $21 million and set a new opening weekend record for a non-English film at the American box office. The subsidiary that handled these releases, Funimation, was merged this month with anime streaming site Crunchyroll, which will now be the label for all theatrical anime releases.
Like other films released by the label, “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” heavily skewed young and male with a whopping 77% in the 18-35 demo with 60% male. On the more conventional side of the specialty market, distributors like Focus Features are hoping that the drop in infection rates will finally entice older moviegoers to return to theaters.
This weekend, Focus released the mob thriller “The Outfit” in 1,324 theaters, earning an opening weekend of $1.5 million with 59% of the film’s audience being over the age of 35. The film stars Mark Rylance as Leonard, a soft-spoken tailor who makes a living in Chicago selling suits to the only people who can afford them: gangsters who also use his shop as a money drop.
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