One Piece Film: Red has finally been released in the states, and here’s a breakdown of how its box office compares to other anime films.
has finally been released in the United States, but how does its box office compare to past anime films? Red made its debut in the United States with a total of 4.8 million dollars, enough to surpass box office powerhouse Black Adam, at least for that one day (via Collider). The movie ended its opening weekend with a domestic gross of 9.48 million and a worldwide gross of about 16 million, ultimately finishing in second place for the weekend (via Cartoon Brew).
One Piece Film: Red had a great opening weekend for an anime movie, and here’s a breakdown of how it compares to past anime films, both in and out of the One Piece franchise. While there have been a lot of anime movies released over the years, it’s only been in the past few years that anime movies have been having notable success at the box office outside of Japan. As such, aside from a few specific examples, Red’s opening box office will only be compared to more recent anime films.
Including One Piece Film: Red, only four One Piece movies have had theatrical releases in the United States, and Red has the best box office out of all of them. One Piece: Episode of Alabasta – The Desert Princess and the Pirates only opened to 5.7 thousand dollars (via Box Office Mojo), One Piece Film: Gold to about 50 thousand dollars (via Box Office Mojo), and One Piece: Stampede to about 358 thousand dollars (via Box Office Mojo). With those numbers, it’s clear that One Piece Film: Red had the biggest domestic opening out of all other One Piece movies with it grossing 9.48 million in its opening weekend, and the fact that its opening day gross of 4.8 million dollars was almost four times as much as Stampede’s total gross of about 1.3 million dollars further drives its success home.
One Piece Film: Red’s opening weekend is impressive for an anime film, and it certainly puts it above other big films, but it also ends up falling short of others. For big anime films Red surpassed, its opening of 9.3 million dollars put it far above the opening weekends of Mirai’s opening of 63 thousand dollars (via Box Office Mojo), The Wind Rises’ opening of 313 thousand dollars (via Box Office Mojo), Studio Chizu’s Belle’s opening of 1.56 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo), and both Your Name and Weathering with You opening to about 1.81 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo) and 1.8 million dollars, respectively (via Box Office Mojo). Your Name and Weathering with You were both critically-acclaimed films by acclaimed anime director Makoto Shinkai, The Wind Rises was both a Studio Ghibli movie and the original last Hayao Miyazaki movie, and both Mirai and Belle were critically-acclaimed films by acclaimed anime director Mamoru Hosoda, with Mirai even being the first non-Studio Ghibli anime film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. All of those movies were plenty successful in their own rights, so Red being able to surpass their opening box offices says a lot.
Unfortunately, One Piece Film: Red’s opening still falls short of other big anime films over the years. For starters, Red’s domestic gross of 9.48 million puts it far below Pokémon: The First Movie, which still has the largest opening weekend of an anime movie in the United States with an opening of 31 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo). Red’s opening weekend also falls short of more recent anime films, with Jujutsu Kaisen 0 grossing 18 million dollars in its opening weekend (via Box Office Mojo), Demon Slayer: Mugen Train grossing 21.2 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo), and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero grossing 21.1 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo). Red’s box office was notably closer to the opening box office of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, but it still fell short with Broly opening to about 9.8 million dollars (via Box Office Mojo) compared to Red’s 9.48 million dollar opening. All of that makes Red’s success come across as rather mixed, as it outperformed some big anime films but was, in turn, surpassed by others.
Is One Piece Film: Red A Box Office Success Or Failure?
With other anime films being taken into account, another question to consider is whether 2022’s One Piece Film: Red can be considered a box-office success or a box-office failure. Aside from Pokémon: The First Movie, Red has a higher gross than a lot of notable anime films to come before it, and it vastly surpassing all other One Piece movies played in the United States is also rather noteworthy. That being said, it still made less money than some of the most recent mainstream anime films to come to theaters in the United States, which is definitely a point against Red.
While One Piece Film: Red fell short of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, and both Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, it’s easy enough to explain why that happened. While both One Piece and Dragon Ball have spent decades garnering fans around the world, at least in the United States, the Dragon Ball franchise is far more recognizable and has far more mainstream appeal than One Piece, so it makes sense that Dragon Ball’s movies would have the better returns. In the cases of Mugen Train and Jujutsu Kaisen 0, both movies came out not long after the highly-successful runs of the anime they each spun off from, so they were both able to increase their numbers by taking advantage of how their respective anime were still at the peak of their popularity. By comparison, the One Piece anime doesn’t have as much mainstream appeal thanks to its length and for spending years having infamously inconsistent pacing and animation, so it was likely harder for Red to attract casual anime fans than its contemporaries.
That being said, Toei Animation’s One Piece Film: Red can still be seen as a success. Red opening to 9.3 million is still a tremendous feat for an anime film, and just because it’s not the biggest opening for an anime film doesn’t make it a failure. Not only that, but Red is still doing incredible in the international market. On an international scale, Red has grossed about 172 million dollars (via Screen Daily), was at the top of the Japanese box office for eleven consecutive weeks and managed to quickly return to the top, and is the ninth highest-grossing Japanese film of all time (via Anime News Network). As such, even if it isn’t finding as much success in the United States as other anime films, in terms of overall success, Goro Taniguchi’s One Piece Film: Red will still go down as one of the biggest anime films of all time, and that’s more than commendable.
Source: Screen Rant
