Movie Monday: ‘Infinity Castle’ Slays at the Box Office

How many people have been keeping up with the Demon Slayer anime? Enough to dominate the box office in a weekend of new releases, it turns out.

Despite Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – the Movie: Infinity Castle essentially acting as the beginning of the TV show’s fifth season, that didn’t stop the film from taking $70 million in its opening weekend. Internationally, it did far better, securing an additional $283 million. Yes, viewers needed to know what has happened in the show before they could fully understand Infinity Castle, but it still earned the box office’s spot as Upper Rank One.

But whereas Infinity Castle’s demons are far closer to vampires, the ones in The Conjuring: Last Rites offer no such spiritual technicality. That movie, the only one to stay in the top five from last week, took second this weekend by earning $26.1 million domestically. That brings its domestic total to $131 million and its worldwide gross to $332.9 million.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale found its posh pockets stripped of cash. It took in $18.1 million in the US, contributing to a worldwide gain of $30.4 million. Those numbers aren’t good enough to make its finale grand: It’ll have to make do with the bronze medal.

On Downton Abbey’s bright side, at least they earned enough to afford the bus fare. Otherwise, they’d have to grapple with The Long Walk. The Stephen King-based movie took in $11.5 million among American audiences, who, despite the big name behind the story, just couldn’t be convinced to walk to their local theater. The movie hiked its way to fourth place. It’s not the best showing for King’s work, but at least, unlike in the movie’s universe, finishing fourth doesn’t end in an untimely demise.

Rounding out the top five was the re-release of Toy Story, which hoped it might “reach for the sky” once again. Well, it didn’t quite make it this time around, garnering $3.5 million domestically and $1.7 internationally. But hey, at least it didn’t “fall with style.”

Looking down the list, the comeback tour of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues found itself washed up in ninth. It garnered $1.7 million. At least it didn’t go down to 11^th. Just behind the band came another re-release—The Sound of Music, which found that, when placing at the box office, it brings us back to dough, dough, dough, dough. $1.5 million of it, in fact. It sang its way to 10^th place.