Another weekend, another anime movie that almost comes out of nowhere at the box office. Last month, Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures’ “Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Infinity Castle” opened with a monster $70.6 million on its way to $132.3 million in the U.S. alone, so far. Six weeks later, the same studios dropped “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc,” which rode anime fandom for a super impressive $17.2 million to win the weekend.
Landing an A grade CinemaScore, a 72 on Metacritic, a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, and five out of five stars on post-screening service PostTrack, “Chainsaw Man” has a shot to repeat at no. 1 next weekend with only Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia” expanding nationwide. So far, “Chainsaw” has taken in $108 million worldwide. Sony Pictures has every market outside of Japan and has earned $60.4 million to date. Both animated films have been a welcome addition to Sony’s bottom line after “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” and “Caught Stealing” massively disappointed at the box office.
Speaking of disappointments, Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” opened with just $9.1 million in 3,460 theaters for an OK $2,630 per screen. The 20th Century Studios production took in another $7 million overseas for a global cume of $16.2 million so far. At a reported cost of $55 million, “Deliver Me” will need good word of mouth with older audiences and strong overseas numbers to break even. It’s a rare music biopic miss that may have suffered from not focusing on more of Springsteen’s legendary career. The fact that the movie doesn’t feature many of the music icon’s greatest hits may not have helped either. Cooper believes there is a window for a sequel chronicling more of the music legend’s life, but that seems like a pipe dream at this point.
“Deliver Me” also opened just above the $6-8 million range that “The Smashing Machine” and “Roofman” debuted to over the past month. Not ideal for filmmakers pitching mid-budget dramas aimed primarily at older men.
Also opening this weekend was Josh Boone’s “Regretting You,” which took in $12.8 million domestically and $22.8 million worldwide. This Colleen Hoover literary adaptation didn’t spark as big as “It Ends With Us” did last year, and reviews were not kind, with a dreadful 33 grade on Metacritic and a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. At a cost of just $30 million, however, it has a shot at breaking even for its distributor, Paramount Pictures.
NEON dropped the crowd-funded horror film “Shelby Oaks” in 1,823 theaters for $2.3 million and a not-great $1,289 per screen. Written and directed by YouTube movie influencer Chris Stuckmann, “Oaks” debuted at the Fantasia Film Festival in 2024, but the indie distributor held it for over a year before release. The movie cost just $1.4 million to make, although donors don’t get their money back in the crowdfunding process. That means the flick ends up as a nice little profitable win for Stuckmann, his producers, and NEON.
Focus Features’ aforementioned “Bugonia” had a fantastic limited release, taking in $690,000 in just 17 venues for a stellar $40,598 per screen. With another $618,000 overseas, it has a worldwide gross of $1.3 million so far.
Hollywood is essentially taking Halloween weekend off with the next major releases not set until Nov. 7 when “Predator: Badlands,” “Die My Love,” and “Nuremberg” all open in some form of wide release.
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Bluesky
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Threads
Follow Gregory Ellwood on Instagram
Sign Up For The Breakdown Newsletter
