Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero opened to an impressive $20.1 million-plus at the North American box office. The number could climb higher once Sunday grosses are tallied.
Crunchyroll, which is distributing the Japanese movie in North America, says the sequel is scoring the best global opening ever for an anime film. Overseas, the film opened to $12 million from 32 markets, including $11.2 million from markets handled by Sony Pictures International.
Directed by Tetsuro Kodama from a story by series creator Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball Super 2 is the 21st feature film in the long-running Dragon Ball universe and a sequel to 2018’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly. The CGI-animated martial arts fantasy, produced by Toei Animation, is playing in more than 3,100 cinemas in North America, including 324 IMAX locations that contributed a hefty $3.4 million, and in more than 100 countries overall.
In 2018, Dragon Ball Super: Broly debuted to $9.8 million domestically from roughly 1,200 theaters.
Among those turning out to see Dragon Ball Super 2, males made up 75 percent of buyers in the U.S., while 70 percent of the audience was between the ages of 18 and 35.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero easily slayed the weekend’s other nationwide new offering, Beast.
Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, Beast opened in second place with a modest $11.6 million from 3,743 theaters. While that’s in line with tracking, it’s still a disappointing start for the Universal release, which stars Idris Elba as a father who takes his teenage daughters on safari only to come face-to-face with an enraged lion. Beast, which received a lukewarm B Cinemascore, likewise skewed male (56 percent).
Overseas, Beast earned $10.3 million from its first seven markets for a global start of $21.9 million.
Elsewhere at the box office, Sony’s Bullet Train fell to No. 3 in its sophomore outing with a projected $8 million. That’s a modest 41 percent decline.
Top Gun: Maverick remained high up on the chart as it flies toward the $700 million mark at the domestic box office. And on Sunday, the Paramount and Skydance project became the ninth-top grossing of all film globally after crossing $1.4 billion in worldwide ticket sales.
Elsewhere, A24’s specialty pic Bodies Bodies Bodies rounded out the top 10 domestically as it expanded into more than 2,500 locations for a weekend gross of $2.4 million and domestic total of $7.4 million.
