‘Demon Slayer’ could win the box office this weekend

Amber Pegler has been captivated by the “Demon Slayer” anime franchise since first reading the manga years ago.

She’s watched the whole series, which focuses on a young boy searching for a cure to save his sister, cursed by a demon that killed the rest of his family. The 32-year-old costume designer loves the art style, particularly during the fighting sequences, and can’t wait for the film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” to hit U.S. theaters this weekend.

“The ‘Infinity Castle’ is a really gut-punching final arc,” said the Long Beach resident. “It’s about navigating the big world, and sometimes the big world has big demons.”

The Sony Pictures title, released through the studio’s anime banner Crunchyroll, could be No. 1 at the domestic box office, with expectations ranging from $40 million to as high as $60 million. It could beat fellow openers “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” “The Long Walk” (based on a Stephen King novel) and “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.” Advance ticket sales look promising — Fandango reported that the movie is the best first-day ticket pre-seller ever for an anime film.

Globally, “Demon Slayer” has already made more than $272 million in box office revenue, with $213 million in Japan alone.

The hype around the upcoming “Demon Slayer” movie has highlighted the growing demand for anime. Once considered niche, the Japanese animation style has long been popular, especially in the U.S., but the pandemic fueled a bump in viewership and introduced new audiences to the shows and films. Streaming platforms including Crunchyroll, Netflix and Hulu have responded in kind, increasing stables of anime content, particularly because it appeals to younger viewers.

“Even 10 years ago, anime was big, but it was still considered a niche,” said Rahul Purini, president of Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service. “We don’t consider it to be a niche anymore. It is mainstream, as mainstream as it could get.”

That mainstream interest is showing up in the response to the new “Demon Slayer” movie around the world, providing a needed surprise hit to beleaguered movie theater operators after a bruising summer.

It’s Imax’s highest-grossing local language film released outside of China.

“Imax has been a unique beneficiary of the popularity of anime,” said Rich Gelfond, company chief executive. “As anime gains worldwide audiences, we can really lever off that and take advantage in many countries, not just one. It really travels very well.”

That international interest is key, particularly for the companies that are doubling down on anime. Crunchyroll executives say the brand’s core markets are in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, with fast-growing audiences in countries like France, Germany, Brazil and Mexico. The streamer also sees emerging markets in India, Southeast Asia and Spain.

Netflix now has subtitled anime in 33 languages and dubbed titles in about a dozen, said Yuji Yamano, Netflix’s director of content acquisition in Japan, who joined the company in 2019 to lead the licensing and acquisition of local live-action and anime content. The Los Gatos-based streaming service has seen the viewing hours for anime triple during the last five years.

“Anime has always been viewed by global audiences, but the audience size is really, really growing since we’ve been introducing it on Netflix,” he said through an interpreter. “There’s a lot of potential for it to grow even further.”

What drives that interest? Experts and fans say audiences are attracted to the nuanced storylines that deal with darker themes and mirror the increasing complexities of our world.

The Crunchyroll series “Solo Leveling,” adapted from a South Korean web novel, examines economic inequality through the lens of characters who develop supernatural powers to fight monsters. Class conflict is a central theme of a recently released Crunchyroll series called “Gachiakuta,” in which poor people are forced to live outside of the city, divided from the rest of society by a large white wall.

“Anime is not quite going to give us the easy certainties,” said Susan Napier, a professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University. “The world does have darkness. Anime allows us to process … some of these really conflicting, difficult emotions we have.”

The growth of anime on streaming platforms has also helped boost interest.

Decades ago, U.S. fans resorted to VHS recordings or burned DVDs with fan-made English subtitles. Others, like Matt Lewis, got hooked first through television cartoons, such as Cartoon Network, including Warner Bros.’ “Toonami” programming block. Today, Lewis works as a promotions director for Anime Los Angeles, a fan convention.

“Over the years, as anime got more popular, as anime became way more accessible through Crunchyroll, streaming, Netflix … more people just naturally got into that community,” he said.

In 2023, anime made up $5.5 billion of global streaming revenue, averaging about 6% of all genres, according to the most recent data from research firm Parrot Analytics.

Companies such as Crunchyroll have capitalized on fan interest by expanding into online merchandise, which is a major part of anime fandom, as well as digital manga, games and music. The streamer has also sponsored anime nights with MLB teams including the Dodgers, and collaborated with the English Premier League, NBA and NASCAR.

“We are here to help elevate and celebrate creator stories,” said Gita Rebbapragada, Crunchyroll’s chief operating officer. “When fans want to go deeper, there’s a home for them at Crunchyroll, with so much to offer with the streaming service, but also with the other pieces that help them connect to their favorite characters.”

Crunchyroll has 17 million subscribers as of May, up from 15 million late last year and 13 million in January 2024, Sony said. Last year, Crunchyroll’s global streaming revenue from anime titles totaled $1.4 billion, according to data from Parrot Analytics. Sony declined to comment on Parrot’s estimates.

Sony acquired Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020 for $1.2 billion. At the time, Sony already owned anime subscription service Funimation, which was known for its dubbed titles. The two platforms later merged to create what the company says is the single largest library of anime in the world, with 25,000 hours, or 50,000 episodes, of content.

The combined service allows fans to view dubbed and subtitled content in one place. In August, the company announced a restructuring that included layoffs. Crunchyroll did not disclose the number of layoffs, but in an internal memo, Purini said the restructuring was to address the company’s growth and part of a “new organizational model that supports regionally-empowered teams.”

What anime has lacked is a big, breakout live-action hit to catapult it into mainstream Hollywood, said Douglas Montgomery, market adviser for Parrot Analytics. Though there have been attempts, such as 2017’s controversial live-action “Ghost in the Shell,” starring Scarlett Johansson, and the John Cho-led series remake “Cowboy Bebop” in 2021, both flopped.

“There is a success case,” he said. “But until there’s two or three more of those, I think the the ultimate growth of anime as a visual form would be limited.”