Having grossed nearly $150 million in Japan and other territories, animated fantasy adventure One Piece Film: Red arrives on November 4th. The 15th feature in the franchise that began in 2000, the Toei Animation title comes from director Gorõ Taniguchi.
This is the same studio that gave us Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The former made nearly $10 million in its opening frame in January 2019 while Super Hero swooped to a remarkable $21 million start in August.
One Piece is currently the highest grosser of the year in Japan. Comparisons to Dragon Ball are tricky since the predecessors in this series have not received wide North American distribution. One Piece: Stampede preceded this and made just over $1 million domestically in 2019.
A further complication is that I’ve yet to see a screen count. The aforementioned Super Hero flew to its $20M+ premiere in 3000 venues. I doubt this will reach those numbers. That said, I’ve underestimated this genre before and it seems sensible to project this could debut right above or right below $10 million.
One Piece Film: Red opening weekend prediction: $10.2 million
For my The Banshees of Ininsherin prediction, click here:
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