5 Reasons Why Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Ruled The Box Office

Just about nobody had the weekend of September 12, 2025, circled on their calendar as potentially being a huge frame at the box office. And yet, here we are, staring down the barrel of one of the most unexpectedly robust weekends of the year, led by the record-breaking debut of "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle."

The latest big screen entry in the popular anime property finally arrived in North American theaters over the weekend, pulling in an astonishing $70.6 million. Pre-release box office estimates had it pulling in around $50 million which, to be clear, would still have been incredible. It now ranks as the biggest opening ever for an anime film in the U.S., topping that of "Pokémon: The First Movie — Mewtwo Strikes Back" ($31 million) way back in 1999. It's also the biggest opening weekend ever for an R-rated animated movie, as well as the biggest opening for an international movie in the U.S. ever.

Needless to say, this is a bigger-than-expected deal. Granted, anime feature films have been on the rise in the U.S. ever since "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train" became an unexpectedly huge hit in 2020 and 2021, opening to $21 million domestically with a $50 million finish. All the same, a $70 million opening removes the need for any qualifiers whatsoever. This is a huge opening weekend, period.

So, what went right? How did "Infinity Castle" manage to blow by any and all expectations? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why the new "Demon Slayer" movie ruled the box office. Let's get into it.

The audience response to "Infinity Castle" has been, in a word, stellar. The new film currently boasts a very impressive 97% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes to go with a near-perfect 98% audience score. In addition, it boasts an A on CinemaScore, which remains one of the best tools we have to measure audience satisfaction. That can also be a great indicator as to how a given movie will hold week-to-week. That said, anime films tend to drop pretty hard after their opening weekends, as the loyalists come out early. Even so, this debut was so big that even a record drop would hardly matter.

"Demon Slayer," as a franchise, already has a sizable, built-in audience. That always helps when it comes to getting people out to the movies these days. In fact, that's how "The Conjuring: Last Rites" was able to post its record-breaking $194 million opening just last week. But that's not always a guarantee. When the latest entry in an ongoing property truly delivers the goods and meets — or exceeds — audience expectations, that's when something truly special can happen, and that's pretty much exactly what we saw here.

It also didn't hurt that the movie had already played overseas for weeks, which helped build up hype for the fanbase in North America who were eager to see what all the fuss was about.

On the one hand, it proved to be a pretty busy weekend. New releases such as "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale" ($18.1 million) and "The Long Walk" ($11.5 million) played to their respective audiences, while "The Conjuring: Last Rites" ($25.6 million) held onto a chunk of the horror crowd on its second go-round. There were also noteworthy re-releases such as "Toy Story" ($3.5 million) and "The Sound of Music" ($1.6 million) to choose from. Elsewhere, the sequel "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" ($1.6 million) debuted to little fanfare.

The point is, although audiences had no shortage of options this weekend, there was absolutely nothing directly competing with "Infinity Castle." The "Demon Slayer" movies have been steadily making money at the U.S. box office for several years now, so there is undoubtedly an audience to serve. Anime is a pretty specific thing, too, and none of the other R-rated films on the market at the moment are even remotely in the same genre. There's also not much out there right now for animation buffs save for the "Toy Story" re-released. In general, the fall movie season can be dead compared to summer, particularly in September, so credit to Sony for picking a pitch-perfect release date for "Infinity Castle." With the benefit of hindsight, it's hard to imagine a better scenario.

One thing that shouldn't be overlooked is the fact that Sony Pictures is now handling the "Demon Slayer" movies in North America. Sony purchased Crunchyroll back in 2020 before combining Funimation and Crunchyroll in 2022. The studio saw the opportunity to invest in the growing market that is anime, and it is paying off. To its credit, Sony is also putting its vast resources into these movies, as opposed to just dumping them in theaters and hoping they just magically market themselves (or something along those lines).

Just about every week, we see movies from smaller distributors, be it Bleecker Street or MUBI, that struggle to compete at the domestic box office. It's tough to get people's attention these days, and smaller companies have fewer resources. Crunchyroll, on its own, might not have been able to cut through the noise like this. But Sony has truly helped give the anime brand a real footprint in theaters, launching an effective, targeted marketing campaign that reached the intended audience in a way nobody could have predicted.

It's tough to imagine such an outcome without the backing of a major studio. Similarly, it's easy to imagine a big Hollywood player fumbling the bag in a situation like this. So, credit where credit is due, Sony did right by "Infinity Castle." The numbers don't lie.

"Infinity Castle" was billed as the first part in a trilogy of final movies that will bring the "Demon Slayer" saga to a close. Things are so open-ended these days that an actual ending is, itself, a big deal. While we're certainly not suggesting that this is quite as big as "Avengers: Infinity War" pulling in $2 billion while teeing up the ball for "Avengers: Endgame," there is something to be said for galvanizing the fanbase around a big event within a beloved franchise. That's pretty much what went down here.

It's also not just happening in the U.S. To date, "Infinity Castle" has made more than $450 million worldwide, including over $200 million in its native Japan. That means it is one of the 10 biggest movies of the year globally, overtaking "Captain America: Brave New World" ($415 million worldwide). This film is a major deal, with Sony, Crunchyroll, and all involved able to effectively communicate that to fans. The end is near, and this is the beginning of the end. One can only imagine what that means for the next two movies.

Is this whole enterprise just going to keep getting bigger and bigger? Time will tell. It certainly doesn't seem impossible, as the arrow appears to just keep pointing up.

Anime has been very popular for a long time, particularly in Japan, but it's also been growing in popularity all over the world. It's been a bit niche — or at least seen as a niche interest — in the United States for a long time, though, going back to the Toonami days. That said, it's become crystal clear in recent years that anime is now more mainstream than it's ever been in North America and can no longer be written off as something that appeals to a limited crowd. Doing so would be silly in light of what "Demon Slayer" has just accomplished.

To be clear, in the pandemic era, any movie making $70 million or more on a single weekend domestically is nothing shy of impressive. It just doesn't happen all that often anymore. Case in point, no animated movie has had an opening bigger than "Infinity Castle" in 2025 so far. If that doesn't scream mainstream, I don't know what does. Much in the way that superheroes eventually crossed over into the broader cultural lexicon, it appears that anime, in some cases at least, is approaching a similar inflection point.

The signs have been there. "The Boy and the Heron" unexpectedly topped the box office in 2023. More recently, Netflix scored a surprise number one hit with "KPop Demon Hunters," even though the film had already been available on the service for months. It has also become the biggest movie in Netflix history, overtaking "Red Notice." This opening weekend might well be looked back on as a watershed moment a few years from now. For the moment, though, it simply sends a signal to Hollywood at large: Anime is here for real. Ignoring it would be unwise.

"Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — Infinity Castle" is in theaters now.