‘Demon Slayer’ Film Tops North America’s Weekend Box Office, Earns Over $70 Mil. in 3 Days

By Kayo Goto / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

16:00 JST, September 16, 2025

LOS ANGELES — The latest film in the “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” franchise opened in theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday and topped the weekend box office rankings in North America.

The film directed by Haruo Sotozaki is the first part of the “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle” trilogy. It earned about $70 million (about ¥10.3 billion) across 3,315 North American theaters from Friday to Sunday, according to U.S. film information website Box Office Mojo.

The film’s distributors — Crunchyroll, LLC and Sony Pictures Entertainment — have said it has had the best opening result among all animated films released in North America so far this year.

The New York Times’ electronic edition on Sunday reported the film’s excellent start: “Young audiences are sending a message to Hollywood: Our tastes in movies are changing.”

Demon Slayer tells the story of Tanjiro Kamado, a boy who fights demons alongside his comrades. In North American theaters, the new film can be watched in Japanese with English subtitles or dubbed into English.

The film’s theatrical release in Japan was on July 18, and its box office surpassed the ¥10 billion mark in a record-low eight days.