Luffy always makes a grand entrance wherever he’s going and with the one-two punch of in-universe superstar Uta, One Piece Film: Red’s first weekend was always going to be big, but just how big was it?
One Piece Film: Red had a huge first weekend after opening on August 6 on 495 screens across Japan, with the film sailing to 2.25 billion yen (US$16.63 million) from 1.57 million tickets sold. This marks the biggest opening for a One Piece film ever, the best opening weekend for August in Japan and the second-biggest two-day opening weekend for a film in Japanese history.
On opening day, One Piece Film: Red brought in over 1.2 billion yen (US$8.87 million), making it the third film in Japanese history to make over 1 billion yen on opening day and on par with Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train’s first day in 2020. It is also only the second film in Japanese history (after Demon Slayer) to make 1 billion yen two days in a row.
To put in perspective how well One Piece Film: Red has done, it has already grossed nearly half of what One Piece Film: Strong World made in 2009 and is on track to take down One Piece Film: Z as the highest-grossing film in the franchise at 6.87 billion yen, especially with the Obon holidays coming up and Film: Red’s great word of mouth.
Toei, who is distributing the film in Japan, claimed on Saturday that they were aiming for the “highest-grossing start in the series.” They very much achieved that goal!
