Deadline
Date: December 13, 2020
By: Nancy Tartaglione
International Box Office Editor/Senior Contributor

The international box office continues to provide welcome surprises during the pandemic era. Where movie theaters are open and people feel safe, they turn up for new or enduringly exciting product that’s on offer.

To wit: Japan’s Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train has perhaps become the story of the year. A runaway success across this period, and in its 9th weekend, it is now estimated to have crossed $310M worldwide (largely from the home market, but also including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam). The movie is days away from becoming the top-grossing film of all time in Japan, overtaking Hayao Miyazaki’s 2010 Spirited Away. Think about that for a minute: It has taken 19 years to reach this level, and was done so during a pandemic.

We’ll have confirmed numbers out of Japan on Demon Slayer tomorrow, where the cume is expected to be closely approaching Spirited Away and primed to beat the all-time record.

Elsewhere, there was good news from China. While local title Bath Buddy was the leader this weekend, DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Croods: A New Age had a great -45% hold. The cume after three weeks is $46M, overtaking Mulan to become the 2nd biggest imported title of 2020.

Overall, Croods 2 grossed an estimated $8.4M this session oversea; lifting its offshore cume to $52.1M and global to $76.3M.    FULL  STORY]