This past weekend, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero made its North American debut and generated over $21 million USD in ticket sales, leaving Idris Elba's survival thriller Beast in the dust.
As was described in a piece from Variety, Super Hero went Super Saiyan (so to speak) on Beast, which earned only about $11.5 million USD on its opening weekend, by a surprising $10 million USD in ticket sales. The film's weekend success alone makes Super Hero the sixth highest-grossing anime film ever at the U.S. box office. The North American distribution of the film is benefiting from premium theatrical formats such as IMAX, MX4D, D-BOX, 4DX and Dolby Cinemas, some for which Super Hero has broken records. The film has earned about $3.4 million USD from IMAX ticket sales, and these are the highest-grossing returns that the theater tech company has ever seen for an anime film at opening weekend.
Building up to its English language debut, Super Hero has enjoyed a robust North American marketing campaign and glowing praise from influential industry figures like Dragon Ball Super artist Toyotarou, and both of these factors are likely contributors to the film's early success. Super Hero is being distributed domestically by Crunchyroll and enjoys the widest theatrical release in the company's distribution history, playing in over 3,100+ theaters across 4,000+ screens.
Super Hero also performed impressively in Japan, its country of origin. During its first three weeks, the film earned around two billion yen in ticket sales (roughly $14.75 million USD at the time). Despite this, the film still lagged behind the pace set by its predecessor, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which managed to garner over three billion yen (equivalent to about $22 million USD at the time) during roughly the same period.
Super Hero's plot revolves around the revival of the notorious Red Ribbon Army, which was once responsible for unleashing deadly androids upon society in their quest for world domination. In the film, they make a comeback, with two deadly new androids at their disposal named Gamma 1 and Gamma 2. Although Goku has taken down the group almost single-handedly in the past, this time the duty lies with his son, Gohan, and Piccolo, both of whom must join forces to stop the Red Ribbon Army and rescue Gohan's young daughter Pan from their clutches.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is now playing in theaters across North America. The ongoing Dragon Ball Super manga series is available in English from VIZ media.
Source: Variety