JUJUTSU KAISEN 0: THE MOVIE opening | X opening | THE OUTFIT opening | March 18 to 20, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office numbers, charts and commentary
The current weekend: March 18 to 20, 2022
1) Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie opening, and FUNimation
- This is a terrific opening. There have been only 11 anime wide releases in the U.S. in the last 25 years, and three of them were the kids-skewing Pokémon. This is the fifth action anime from FUNimation (recently rebranded as Crunchyroll and 95% owned by Sony Pictures). Their Demon Slayer: Mugen Train opened similarly well to $21.1m last April, and their My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission opened to $6.4m in October — both during the pandemic.
- Jujutsu has earned $110m in Japan. When anime movies hit in their home market, they’re in another league (Demon Slayer made an eye-popping $364.8m in Japan). Reviews are exceptional for this and for all of FUNimation/Crunchyroll movies. They have not missed:
2) X opening
- This is a fair opening. The weekend number is below average for an indie horror film. Critics consistently like writer/director/editor Ti West's movies, and that’s true again here. But the horror story unfolds around the making of a porn movie, and while porn might seem ripe for an original treatment using different genres — i.e. comedy, and now horror — it hasn't broken through yet at the box office.
- Horror is not expensive to make — clever cinematography, editing and sound design go a very long way. X should recover its costs and make a few dollars after all ancillary money is counted:
3) The Outfit opening
- This is a weak opening and below average for an original crime drama. These movies generally play well and generate healthy multiples, with half of the money coming from overseas, primarily from Europe. But in this market, with lots of gangster material done well on TV now, a period, Chicago-set crime story is a difficult sell, even with strong reviews: