Already #3 all-time anime in U.S. with US$21 million, behind 1999 & 2000 Pokemon films

The Box Office Mojo website reported on Monday that the Dragon Ball Super: Broly anime film earned an estimated US$9,794,742 in 1,236 theaters in the United States and Canada from Friday to Sunday. The film ranked #4 in the U.S. box office for the weekend according to estimates published on Monday. It ranked below another new film, Glass, as well as The Upside, and the fifth weekend of Aquaman.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly already earned over US$7 million on 1,440 screens, including 180 IMAX and Cinemark XD screens, in its opening day on Wednesday. Altogether, Box Office Mojo reports that the film has a five-day total of US$20,214,771. That total already ranks the film at #3 on the all-time chart of anime films in the United States and Canada, behind 1999's Pokemon: The First Movie and Pokemon 2000 - The Movie.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly already earned over US$65 million outside the United States and Canada, including nearly US$32 million in Japan alone. That brings its combined domestic and foreign total to more than US$85 million.

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' , the previous film in the franchise, set Funimation Films' previous opening day record when it earned US$1.97 million on its opening day in the United States. Dragon Ball Super: Broly now holds the record. According to Funimation, the new film set the record for biggest opening for an event film, and was the fifth highest earning anime theatrical opening of all time.

Funimation premiered the film's English dub at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on December 13. Alongside the general screenings on Wednesday, Funimation also screened the film in IMAX theaters on Wednesday only. The movie is the first anime film to screen in IMAX in the United States.

Vic Mignogna and Dameon Clarke returned as the English voices of Broly and Paragus, respectively, and Chris Ayres played Frieza. Other English dub cast members included Sean Schemmel as Goku himself, Emily Neves as Gine (Goku's mother), Erica Lindbeck as Cheelai, Bruce Carey as Lemo, Veronica Taylor as Berryblue, and Sonny Franks as Kikono.

The film opened in Japan on December 14, and it sold more than 820,000 tickets and earned more than 1,050,000,000 yen (about US$9.26 million) in its first three days in Japan, topping the box office in its first weekend. Toei stated it anticipates the film will earn more than 5 billion yen (about US$44 million).

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama wrote the script and designed the characters. Tatsuya Nagamine ( One Piece Film Z ) directed the film, Naohiro Shintani served as animation director, and Kazuo Ogura served as art director. Norihito Sumitomo composed the music, and Daichi Miura performed the film's theme song "Blizzard."

Sources: Box Office Mojo, The Hollywood Reporter (Pamela McClintock), Variety (Rebecca Rubin)

Update Box Office Mojo noted later on Sunday that Funimation has not directly reported its box office receipts, so its weekend estimates are from third-party sources. However, the lowest projections of US$9.3 million still ranks it at #4 below Aquaman, while Box Office Mojo's overall estimate ranks it at #3 above Aquaman.

Due largely to inflation and its limited release, Dragon Ball Super: Broly is the #6 all-time anime film in estimated tickets sold (2,386,500) in the United States and Canada, after Pokemon: The First Movie, Pokemon 2000 - The Movie, 2004's Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, 2001's Pokemon 3: The Movie, and 2012's The Secret World of Arrietty. It also garnered the #3 all-time opening weekend among anime films in the United States and Canada, and #5 in estimated tickets sold, after Pokemon: The First Movie, Pokemon 2000 - The Movie, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie, and Pokemon 3: The Movie. Thanks, Takizawa-Shinzou and Maidenoftheredhand.

Update 2 Box Office Mojo updated its estimates on Monday, changing its previous estimate of Dragon Ball Super: Broly's box office takings from US$10,657,442 to US$9,794,742 for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The updated numbers for this and Aquaman put Dragon Ball Super: Broly at #4 at the box office for the weekend, not #3 as the estimates previously indicated.

Box office Mojo is also estimating that Dragon Ball Super: Broly will come in at #4 for the four-day holiday weekend with a total of US$11,494,742.

Update 3 Box Office Mojo updated its estimates on Wednesday, changing its previous estimate of Dragon Ball Super: Broly's box office takings from US$9,794,742 to US$9,810,206 for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Box office Mojo also updated its estimates for the four-day holiday weekend. The website changed its previous estimate of US$11,494,742 to US$11,944,086.