‘Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F’ Breaks Box Office Records For Anime

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F, the latest Dragon Ball Z movie, has recently made its way to America in a limited theatrical release, as previously reported by the Inquisitr. In spite of these limits – one showing a day in only 900 theaters, dropping to 246 theaters on Thursday (and adding 54 in Canada,) Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F is rapidly blowing through box office records, landing on the list of top 10 highest-grossing anime films domestically in record time, as per a report from Cartoon Brew.

As the Inquisitr has previously reported, FUNimation, the film’s American distributor, began a one-week run of Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F last Tuesday. Within three days, Resurrection F had grossed over $4 million. The film ranked at 5th place in the box office on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first time an event release has cracked the top 10. Based off of per-screen average, it’s currently the best-performing movie in theaters.

FUNimation partnered with Fathom Events for the release, owned by AMC, Cinemark, and Regal, and has been pushing an email campaign to fans to increase attendance, as Deadline reports. Funimation founder Gen Fukunaga explained Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F‘s niche, grassroots campaign.

“We did a lot of grassroots efforts. Our budget was very low compared to Hollywood standards,” said Fukunaga, who would not disclose the marketing budget. “We did careful media placement and didn’t do much TV. We bought a small flight of commercials which appeared on the Toonami block of Adult Swim.”

“We reached out to those who influence (Internet culture) to promote to their audiences. We were able tap existing fans through their channels and, in some cases, reached millions of their followers. We had a retail partner, Hot Topic, which did in-store promotions [that helped to get the word out].”

Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F has since risen to a total of $5.58 million grossed, surpassing Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle ($4.7 million) and The Wind Rises ($5.2 million), both distributed by Disney, and both of which ran for weeks or months. This makes Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F the first independent anime film to make the domestic top ten. Hopefully for anime fans, this will help bring new anime films to American shores, and keep them in more theaters longer.

The best news? Due to its success, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F will now be in theaters on Monday as well, so there’s still time to see it if you haven’t yet.