Apr 16, 2024

Box Office Report: "Detective Conan" is the 2nd biggest opening of all time in Japan, "Kung Fu Panda 4" is a big hit in South Korea, and "Shrek 2" is in the top 10 in the U.S.

Animation is heating up the box office worldwide.

Let's start with Japan, which has a very different animation ecosystem than the United States. In the US, when a franchise reaches its third or fourth film, critics often begin to question whether the concept has run out of steam or whether more films are needed. Not so in Japan. Film franchises have a rich mythology that spans a variety of media, and audiences gladly go back year after year for the beloved characters.

Case in point: Detective Conan (Case Closed in the US). This mystery series about a teenage detective transformed into an elementary school student released the 27th feature film in the series last weekend.

Chika Nagaoka's "Detective Conan: The Million Dollar Pentagon" opened to $21.7 million in Japan, the second-highest grossing film of all time. Only "Demon Slayer": Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie and "Infinity Train" have grossed more than this in Japan.

The previous film in the "Detective Conan" series, "Black Iron Undersea," earned just under $90 million in Japan last year, making it the franchise's current highest grossing film.

Animation, in general, has been enthusiastically popular in Japan, helping to fuel the country's box office recovery. Last year's top four box-office performers were all animated films, and this year's highest-grossing film, "Haikyu! Dumpster Battle".

South Korea was not to be outdone, with Universal and DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 4" taking the number one opening spot. This was the second best opening ever for an animated film in South Korea.

"KFP4" has now grossed over $450 million worldwide and will easily cross the $500 million mark before its global run is over.

In the U.S., "KFP4" continued its strong footing and saw less weekend-to-weekend declines than any other film in the top 10, grossing $5.5 million in its sixth weekend and bringing its overall domestic box office to $173.7 million.

Universal and DreamWorks also had an unexpected second film in the top 10: a re-release of the 20-year-old "Shrek 2," which grossed $1.4 million from 1,512 theaters for a per-screen average of $962.

For some perspective, this is more than all three Pixar films ("Soul," "Luca," and "Turning Red") that were released theatrically for the first time this year. For DreamWorks, which is in the process of producing "Shrek 5," this reaffirms that the "Shrek" franchise is still a popular film that can draw audiences.