Box Office: ‘My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising’ Was A Big Win For Anime

On the surface, there’s nothing spectacular about My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising’s $14 million total after two weeks in theaters. After finishing in fourth place at the box office on its opening weekend and 10th place on its second weekend, nothing seemingly stood out about this anime adaptation’s first 16 days on the North American market.

But so many factors—such as its limited theater run, its lack of exposure, its historically low-performing genre—highlight just how big that $14 million has been in just over two weeks.

In fact, that total is one of the best anime showings ever in the U.S. And it broaches unprecedented territory for the My Hero Academia universe.

And it all started with opening weekend when My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising pulled in $5.9 million—the seventh-highest total ever for an anime film in domestic theaters. That opening weekend gross topped gigantic movies like Ponyo, Spirited Away and Your Name.

But by end of that first weekend, the movie’s domestic total didn’t rest at $5.9 million—it stood at $9.3 million thanks to Wednesday and Thursday showings. On Heroes Rising’s opening night—when it showed in just 1,231 theaters—the movie managed $2.6 million and finished in first place amongst all movies.

Heroes Rising’s theater count has strangely been up and down since, ranging between 1,223 and 592 theaters since opening night. But still the film’s per-theater average has remained high. Over its first nine days, Heroes Rising had pulled in $11.2 million. And over the course of its second week (this past week), the move added another $2.4 million (approximately). That brought Heroes Rising’s domestic total to just under $14 million.

Those lifetime earnings currently rank as the eighth-highest ever for an anime film in the United States. Here are those rankings listed out:

1. Pokémon: The First Movie – Mewtwo Strikes Back ($85.7 million)
2. Pokémon the Movie 2000 ($43.8 million)
3. Dragon Ball Super: Broly ($30.7 million)
4. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie – Pyramid of Light ($19.8 million)
5. The Secret World of Arietty ($19.2 million)
6. Pokémon 3 the Movie: Spell of the Unown ($17.1 million)
7. Ponyo ($15.1 million)
8. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising ($14 million)
9. Spirited Away ($10.1 million)
10. Digimon: The Movie ($9.6 million)

While Dragon Ball Super: Broly will go down as FUNimation Entertainment’s highest-grossing domestic film, Heroes Rising marks new territory for the My Hero Academia series. Back in 2018, the first film in the series, My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, only made $5.8 million of its $21 million international total in the U.S. By contrast, Heroes Rising has earned nearly half of its $29 million global gross in the States.

That greatly positions future films for the series in the U.S.—especially if Heroes Rising continues to move up the all-time domestic chart for the anime genre. Even if the coronavirus disrupts Heroes Rising’s momentum, the impact has already been felt.