This article originally ran on October 24. This weekend has seen Chainsaw Man beat estimates and top the box office this weekend.
There’s yet another action anime blockbuster based on TV series based on a manga that has torn up the American box office this weekend. This one is called Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, and the Sony/Crunchyroll movie happens to be a fitting spooky-season release. Like Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan before it, the Chainsaw Man TV series, which is streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu, is part supernatural horror, part coming-of-age story. The film serves as the latest chapter of the TV show, which is an adaptation of creator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s original manga. That made it a must-watch theatrical event for Chainsaw fans in the States and elsewhere. It dominated this weekend’s theatrical receipts, topping newcomers like Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere and Regretting You as well the film that was expected to win this weekend, the still-hot Black Phone 2.
So what is Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc all about, and how did it conquer the box office like prior anime and anime-inspired animated films like Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle and KPop Demon Hunters? Here’s a quick rundown of the new film’s whole deal.
So how well did this movie do?
Very: Latest estimates have it coming at $17.2 million for the weekend, which is about $6 million more than was anticipated by many observers before the weekend. For comparison, the popular, Blumhouse-produced horror sequel Black Phone 2 brought in a current estimated $13 million, per Deadline, while the new Colleen Hoover adaptation Regretting You is coming in a close third at $12.8 million. Meanwhile, the Jeremy Allen White-fronted Springtsteen: Deliver Me From Home is hitting its lower-end prediction with around $9.1 million.
What is Chainsaw Man anyway?
For starters, it’s a very literal title. One of 2022’s most exciting debuts and produced by the animation studio MAPPA, the anime is a hodgepodge of demonic violence, crude humor, and speculative fiction. In the world of Chainsaw Man, World War II never happened and now “devils” run amok. At the start of the series, the Chainsaw Devil meets a young man named Denji, and together they become the Chainsaw Man, a superpowered tough guy with spinning chainsaws that stick out of his hands and head, and join a squad of devil-hunting cops.
And now it’s a movie? What is Reze Arc?
Light spoilers incoming: After a bloody battle against a demonic villain called Samurai Sword (picture Chainsaw Man, but instead of chainsaws, he has samurai swords sticking out of his hands and head), the first season ended with a mysterious young woman cryptically wondering whether Denji would prefer to be a country mouse or a city mouse. Manga fans will know that that woman is Reze, a.k.a. the Bomb Devil, a girl whom Denji will fall for romantically — a series of events complicated by his prior attraction to his fellow devil hunter Makima. The trailer tees up his infatuation rom-com style before spinning into explosive action.
Why was this movie a big deal?
In international markets, it has already earned $68.3 million since debuting on September 19, according to the theatrical tally the Numbers. While it’s unlikely to dethrone fellow Sony-released title Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’s record-breaking box office, anime analyst Miles Atherton told Polygon it’s still among the most popular anime titles in North America. (Crunchyroll doesn’t share viewership numbers for its series.)
Theatrical titles like Demon Slayer, Dan da Dan, and Attack on Titan all spun TV series into box-office moments, big and small. The release model has worked before for distributors Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Releasing, which hold the international rights to Toho’s Chainsaw Man franchise. Similarly, the anime-inspired KPop Demon Hunters managed to make back the cost of nearly its entire production budget over just one weekend with a limited singalong theatrical event, despite being released straight to Netflix months earlier. That one is coming back to theaters for Halloween because it worked so well the first time around.
Will it go to streaming?
For now it’s only in theaters, but eventually, like most of the aforementioned anime titles, we can expect to see it on Crunchyroll. We can’t be certain when, though. (Remember the monthslong wait for The Boy and the Heron?) Unlike American live-action films and their now ubiquitous 30-day windows, anime titles tend to circle most of the globe internationally before they go to streaming release.
Do we need to have watched the first season to really get it?
It probably couldn’t hurt to dive deeper into the lore and relationships, but the movie is relatively self-contained. Chainsaw Man is generally pretty direct — did I mention it’s about a man with chainsaws for hands? — so if you’re worried you’ll be confused, don’t be. Or watch a YouTube recap or two beforehand. It’s worth a spin regardless.
Is there a post-credits scene?
There is. We won’t say too much as that would risk getting too deep into the events of the film, but we will say: Don’t miss it. It doesn’t tee up the next season or anything, but it does put a nice capper on the events of the movie.
