Funimation Films’ Japanese anime movie “Dragon Ball Super: Broly” has opened impressively with a dominant first-day total of $7 million at 1,260 North American locations on Wednesday.
The English-language version of “Dragon Ball Super: Broly,” which screened at 180 Imax and Cinemark XD premium large format screens, generated by far the best per-screen average among the top 10 movies with $5,695. The first-day total nearly matched the entire two-week run of the 2015 release of Funimation’s “Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F.”
“Dragon Ball Super: Broly” has already grossed $53 million internationally, including $29 million in Japan. Funimation is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Television.
“Both anime and mainstream audience response to ‘Dragon Ball Super: Broly’ has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Gen Fukunaga, CEO and president of Funimation. “We anticipated a strong opening, but we’re thrilled that the box office exceeded even the high end of our estimate. We’re thrilled to hear that countless fans have or plan to watch the film multiple times. Fans are at the core of our strategy for this film.”
The martial arts movie is the 20th in the Dragon Ball series. It’s directed by Tatsuya Nagamine and written by Akira Toriyama. It follows the events of the anime series “Dragon Ball Super,” in which the Saiyan protagonists Goku and Vegeta encounter a new Saiyan called Broly, resulting in a massive fight between them.