The film has grossed approximately $400k from other Middle Eastern territories including the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.
MENA-based distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment has announced that its latest release, Toei Animation’s One Piece Film: Red, the 15th film in the anime series, has topped the box office charts in Saudi Arabia and achieved the biggest opening ever for a Japanese anime in the market.
The film finished the weekend at #1 ahead of DC’s Black Adam.
One Piece Film: Red’s opening weekend total (including previews) reached 61,000 admissions and a gross box office of $1.05m, putting it 14% ahead of the previous record holder Jujutsu Kaisen 0 in terms of admissions, which debuted earlier this year, and 50% ahead of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train. The film also had one of the biggest-ever opening days for a PG-12 movie in the Kingdom and the second biggest-ever opening day for an animated film behind Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The movie has already become the franchise’s highest-selling film to date. In Japan, One Piece Film: Red became the highest-grossing film of the year ahead of Top Gun: Maverick and is now the sixth biggest Anime of all time in the territory. The film also opened in North America via CrunchyRoll/Sony this weekend with $4.7m on Friday (including previews).
Front Row has led the way in Anime distribution in recent years in the MENA, releasing several major properties including the previous One Piece Film, Stampede, Dragon Ball Super: Broly and Resurrection ‘F’, Attack On Titan: Chronicle and Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You amongst others. The company also represents the Studio Ghibli catalogue in the region and has also handled the release of several Anime series such as The Promised Neverland, Akudama Drive and many others.
Eli Touma, Front Row’s head of distribution, said: “We are delighted to see how well One Piece Film: Red has performed this weekend. Japanese Animes are incredibly popular in the Middle East and particularly in Saudi Arabia and One Piece is the biggest property of them all. We’re eager to continue feeding this audience as they’ve long been underserved in this region.”
The film also opened strongly across the Middle East with over $400k grossed to date in the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt. It is currently playing across all major cinema chains in the region in IMAX.
