This past weekend saw Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc scoring US$17.25 million in its US opening weekend and crossing the US$100 million mark globally to hit US$108 million, according to numbers from Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.
Reze Arc‘s US intake allowed it to top the country’s weekend box office chart. The runner-ups, horror sequel Black Phone 2 (the previous weekend box office leader) and romantic drama Regretting You (which also opening on October 24), were the only other films that also earned more than US$10 million during the weekend.
The anime movie sequel’s US opening numbers are slightly more than double that of its domestic opening gross of 1.251 billion yen, calculated by Box Office Mojo to be US$8,455,851. The movie opened in 3,003 locations in the US.
Box Office observers have marked this as another box office win for Sony, who also had a hand in distributing the highly successful Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (which has a worldwide gross of more than US$666 million at the time of writing, with the US contributing around US$132.3 million).
Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc is a sequel to 2022’s Chainsaw Man TV anime, with devil-hunting protagonist Denji meeting Reze, who takes an apparent interest in him but is much more dangerous than she first appears. The anime is based on the Shueisha-published supernatural action manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, which Viz Media describes as such:
Denji’s a poor young man who’ll do anything for money, even hunting down devils with his pet devil Pochita. He’s a simple man with simple dreams, drowning under a mountain of debt. But his sad life gets turned upside down one day when he’s betrayed by someone he trusts. Now with the power of a devil inside him, Denji’s become a whole new man—Chainsaw Man!
The movie and TV anime are both produced by MAPPA. The former is directed by the TV anime’s action director Tatsuya Yoshihara instead of previous director Ryu Nakayama.
Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc opened in Japan on September 19 JST.
Staff (reprising unless stated otherwise)
• Director: Tatsuya Yoshihara (Chainsaw Man action director, Black Clover series director [later chief director], Wistoria: Wand and Sword Season1)
• Character designer Kazutaka Sugiyama
• Screenwriter Hiroshi Seko,
• Costume designer Aya Yamamoto
• Music composer: Kensuke Ushio
• Devil designer: Kiyotaka Oshiyama
• Background art director: Yusuke Takeda
• Color designer: Naomi Nakano
• Compositing director: Teppei Ito
• Sub-character designer: Sota Yamazaki (co-chief animation director on Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, character designer and animation director on Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines‘ second ED animation)
• Sub-character designer: Shun (Chainsaw Man co-chief animation director)
• Main animator: Shoichi (Chainsaw Man key animator and Ep 12 co-animation director)
• Action animation director: Sota Shigetsugu (Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 key animator)
• Devil designer: Riki Matsuura (Fire Force Season 2 co-main animator)
• Color script: Riku (Eve “Kororon” music video director, character designer et al. [as Ligton]
• 3DCG director: Daiki Watanabe (Chainsaw Man 3D setup and animation staff)
• 3DCG director: Masahiro Tamai (takt op.Destiny 3DCG modeling director)
• Animation production: MAPPA
Cast
• Kikunosuke Toya as Denji
• Shiori Izawa as Pochita
• Tomori Kusunoki as Makima
• Shogo Sakata as Aki
• Fairouz Ai as Power
• Kobeni as Karin Takahashi
• Natsuki Hanae as Beam
• Yuya Uchida as The Violence Fiend
• Maya Uchida as Angel Devil
• Reina Ueda as Reze
Sources: Box Office Mojo, The Numbers
