Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made over $18 million USD during its opening weekend in North America.
Crunchyroll, which is distributing the film internationally, announced the anime prequel movie's impressive weekend earnings. The movie came in second place overall, behind Warner Bros. and DC Films' The Batman, with $18,002,984 USD. For comparison, My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission and Dragon Ball Super: Broly earned $6 million USD and $7 million USD respectively during their first weekends in the United States and Canada. The highest grossing anime movie of all time, 2020's Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train, earned over $21 million USD during its North American opening weekend. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is only the 12th anime movie in history to earn over $10 million USD during its American theatrical run.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 premiered in Japan on Dec. 24 to the second-biggest opening weekend in Japanese film history. Despite opening in the last week of 2021, the film is now considered the highest grossing movie of 2021 in Japan, dethroning Evangelion 3.0 + 1.01: Thrice Upon A Time, which sat in the top spot for most of the year. Japanese distributor Toho Co. Ltd. originally projected the movie to earn about 10 billion yen (about $85 million USD) during its entire lifetime, a sum that it has now surpassed by over 3 billion yen. The film is now ranked among the top 10 highest grossing anime movies of all time.
The prequel movie is set one year before the first episode of the anime series. Consequently, the movie does not feature the series usual protagonist, Yuji Itadori, but instead tells the story of Yuta Okkotsu, a soft-spoken young man who is haunted by a Curse born from the spirit of his childhood friend, Rika Orimoto. Seeking a way to exorcise Rika, Yuta is brought to Tokyo Jujutsu High, but the Curse's incredible power attracts some unwanted attention from a sorcerer who would use her power against humanity.
The movie isn't the only element of Jujutsu Kaisen that has been setting sales records, as creator Gege Akutami's original manga was also the best-selling series in Japan in 2021, edging out more established franchises such as Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia. A second season of the anime series has been confirmed to be in production and is scheduled to premiere sometime in 2023.
The first season of the anime is available for streaming on Crunchyroll. The original manga is available in English from VIZ Media. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is now in theaters.
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Source: Crunchyroll
