Crunchyroll "One Piece Film Red" with an incredible Times Square display

Crunchyroll is bringing One Piece Film Red, Japan's biggest box-office movie of the year, to North America next month, and it's not messing with US marketing.

Timing perfectly for the company's New York Comic-Con appearance, Crunchyroll took over Times Square over the weekend, filling many of the square's dozens of screens with an impressive display of promotional material from the movie that can be seen in the video posted below by One Piece producer Toei Animation.

The one-piece is real. We witnessed the acquisition of #OnePiece Times Square in New York tonight. Did this really happen....#OPFilmRedNYCC#NYCC#OnePieceFilmRed pic.twitter.com/1fYsPah62v

・ Toei Animation (@ToeiAnimation)2022年10月9日

North American ticket pre-sale of "One Piece Film Red" to be released in theaters in the United States and Canada on 11月4日 has started. Prior to its release in North America, Animation is Film will host the world premiere of the film's English dubbing in Los Angeles on Saturday 10/22.

Crunchyroll is three-quarters of the way through the year that seems likely to go down in history as a really transformative for anime distribution in North America. "Dragon Ball Super Hero" (ル3,810 million) and "Jiu Jitsu Sentai 0" (ー3,450 million) are big hits for Sony-owned distributors and rank as the 4th and 5th highest-grossing animated titles in North American box office history.

In fact, 6 of the top 4 most profitable animated titles in North America have appeared in the past 4 years, with Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train (Mug49.5million) and Dragon Ball Super: Broly (3 30.7million) participating in the aforementioned two films. It's no exaggeration to say that the mark of 30-50 million dollars is the new standard that big-name anime features will be held in the future.

The One-piece box Office potential is the fact that this fall's wide release calendar is very weak, and One-Piece is the only wide release scheduled for the weekend of 11/4. It is also played in IMAX and other eye-catching formats, which usually increase the theatrical profile of the film. And unlike Jujustu Kaisen0 and Demon Slayer The Movie, the One Piece franchise has a decades-long history as one of the most popular mainstream anime Ip in the United States

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Meanwhile comes a high entry bar for new fans with such a strong history. Some potential ticket buyers get scared by decades of one-piece content that precedes Film Red - Crunchyroll can convince newcomers who don't follow the show that this film is a good entry point to the franchise - a process like the acquisition of Times Square. Motion excites existing fans, but does nothing to convince the average movie fan that this is a good standalone movie experience, regardless of prior involvement with the ip.

Domestically, on the other hand, One Piece Film Red has become Japan's biggest box-office hit of the year and currently sits only after 500 million yen (3.4 million Harryharry) in the Harry Potter and the Secret Room This film in the country has grossed 1.6776 billion yen (ド119.92 million) and has become Japan's number one film for the past 10 consecutive weeks .

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