Jujutsu Kaisen 0 continues to set records across the globe, having surpassed $30 million at the U.S. box office and eclipsing 2019’s Dragon Ball Super: Broly as the fourth high-grossing anime film in U.S. box office history. Crunchyroll announced the milestone in a blog post today.
The prequel film released in Japan on Christmas Eve, where it usurped Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time as the best selling film at the Japanese box office in 2021. And since then it’s continued to climb, having now grossed $117.05 million to become the ninth best-selling film in the nation’s box office history.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 has some big numbers to compete with, but may just have the momentum to keep climbing up. Pokémon: The Movie 2000 is the third highest grossing anime film in the U.S. at over $43 million, while 2020’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train, the best selling anime film worldwide and in Japan, has it beat at $47 million. All these figures are dwarfed, however, by the dominance of the first Pokémon film, the aptly-titled 1999 feature Pokémon: The First Movie, which sits at number one with a gross of over $85 million.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0’s runaway success hasn’t been celebrated equally, however. The large figures prompted several voice actors to recently go public with how little they were paid for their performances on the film, even after its domestic success.
Sunghoo Park directed the film, a prequel to MAPPA’s popular shonen anime adaptation of Jujutsu Kaisen, while Crunchyroll oversaw the international theatrical release. The studio is working on a third season based on the manga series by Gege Akutami, due 2023.
The first season of Jujutsu Kaisen is streaming on Crunchyroll.
