Box Office Report: Dragon vs. Lion

August is drawing to a close soon and we’re still a couple of weeks away from some major box office releases. That means this is the perfect time to drop something that is perhaps a little more niche and see it fly to the top of the list. Step forward anime!

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the latest entry in the long-running and astonishingly popular series. This is the 21st Dragon Ball feature overall (!) and the first to be produced mainly using 3D animation. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that one of the most successful manga and anime series of all time could take the top spot at the North American box office but we still tend to view international films, especially anime, with blinders on. Yet this movie opened in over 3,000 theaters, took the top spot at the box office, and grossed around $20.1 million. That is mightily impressive. Nerds just keep winning and I respect it.

It also beat Beast, the Idris Elba vs. Lion thriller, which opened in around 700 more theaters and had a major star front and center in advertising. Beast grossed over $11.57 million. That’s not brilliant given its $36 million budget. Maybe this one will kill on streaming. It does seem like the kind of movie that, unfortunately, is likely to be viewed by general audiences as a VOD default viewing experience rather than a cinematic one.

Top Gun: Maverick just broke another record and overtook Avengers: Infinity War to become the sixth highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. That’s over $683 million in the bank. Can it take over Black Panther and its $700 million total? That seems like a tough task but this film has proven it’s in it for the long haul.

Horror sequel Orphan: First Kill made $1.675 million from 498 theaters. That not-kid murderer lady still scares me.

This coming week sees the release of horror film The Invitation, the John Boyega thriller Breaking, and George Miller’s bananas romantic fantasy Three Thousand Years of Longing.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.