It comes to no surprise to us that Dragon Ball Super: Broly has absolutely dominated US box office ratings, landing it at the number 3 spot for the highest grossing film over Martin Luther King weekend. Opening at 9,794,742 USD and accumulating in excess of 21,914,771 USD in the following days, Broly has earned itself the number 3 spot for highest grossing box office anime films in the US for all time.
While the film’s theatrical success threw off a lot of mainstream film buffs, fans of Dragon Ball and anime alike saw this coming from miles away. With how well Dragon Ball Z Resurrection ‘F’ had done following up from the acclaimed Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods, it was guaranteed that whatever movie the series was going to put out next would be successful. That’s not even taking into consideration how the franchise was revitalized through Dragon Ball Super directly after Resurrection ‘F’, which continued to bring series back in a big way. That being said, it would be unfair to discount the effect that Broly himself had on the film’s hype leading up. Being a character that fans had really wanted to like for the longest time despite how weak his previous films were, combined with the fact that almost everyone thought the character was gone for good after he was replaced by Kale in Dragon Ball Super, his sudden return had everyone going crazy. Dragon Ball Super: Broly marked the first time that the character was effectively being “canonized” into the expanding Dragon Ball universe by Akira Toriyama himself, which made the lead up this film even more monumental.
In a sense, Dragon Ball has hit a new peak. Dragon Ball Super has introduced a whole new generation to the franchise that wasn’t around for Dragon Ball Z, and the fans that were are now old enough to have children of their own (who they would likely be more than excited to take to this movie).
It’s worth emphasizing how impressive Broly’s number 3 spot is for anime US box office really is. The only two films that beat it out are Pokemon: The First Movie and Pokemon: The Movie 2000, both of which represent Pokemon at its absolute peak. Broly has already got Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie beat out at number 4, which was also had a colossal following during its time. It also bears mentioning that Broly’s number 3 spot means that it has every single studio Ghibli beat out, which is by no means a small feat.
The film’s theatrical run has been conducted by Funimation, with the film coming to UK and Ireland through Manga Entertainment on the January 23 and Australia through Madman Entertainment on the January 24.