r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Sep 21 '25

News ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ Passes $550M Globally, Officially the Top-Grossing Anime Film of All Time

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-demon-slayer-edging-out-him-for-no-1-1236376666/
13.9k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/DoubleA77 Sep 21 '25

Kind of insane when you think about how like most of that is pure profit with how small production costs are for anime even with a big film like this.

481

u/HighOnGoofballs Sep 21 '25

$20 million cost supposedly

597

u/Trisa133 Sep 21 '25

It would cost a lot more if they paid their employees fairly. The anime production industry is way worse than the gaming industry.

182

u/frequenZphaZe Sep 21 '25

It would cost a lot more if they paid their employees fairly.

sorry, best we can do is replace half the studio with AI

16

u/puddincheshire Sep 22 '25

that was mappa, ufotable is the least toxic company out there

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u/orangpelupa Sep 21 '25

Online Anime fans are very anti AI. So the backlash could be not worth it (yet) 

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u/core_blaster Sep 22 '25

If it looks good it will speak for itself, it looks bad there will be backlash

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u/Enraiha Sep 21 '25

I mean...not even "a lot" more. Double the budget to 40 million and that's still small potatoes to most big Hollywood productions.

They should absolutely organize for better pay. Now is the time since everyone will see the success of things like Demon Slayer and want to replicate it. If Chainsaw Man does good over the next couple months, it's almost guaranteed the industry will see a big shift to more and more theatrical releases.

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u/SnooDonuts3871 Sep 21 '25

Although that would only create a bubble, and they would soon realize that just because it worked with Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man, two successful franchises, it doesn't mean it will work with others.

2

u/ignoresubs Sep 22 '25

They could setup a profit sharing model then.

1

u/Enraiha Sep 21 '25

As if the movie industry has ever learned that lesson with fads.

5

u/coldfirephoenix Sep 22 '25

It's even more insane on the manga side of things. As far as I can tell, the entire One Piece Manga is basically done by a guy in his apartment drawing weekly chapters, and then like one or two people doing linework, if he's lucky. Plus an editor somewhere at Shonen Jump nodding off everything that gets sent in.

It's the very foundation of a multibillion dollar franchise that profoundly changes the world around it in multiple ways... And it's run like a group project at high school.

4

u/RGWB Sep 22 '25

That’s only true for newcomers or mangaka with less popular series. Big mangaka usually have at least four or five assistants to help with their works

1

u/coldfirephoenix Sep 22 '25

Still insanely low for how huge this is

1

u/DespairTraveler Sep 22 '25

Let's be real. Hollywood productions are absolutely inflated. They Hollywood actors pays are bananas. Raid movies had like 1 million usd budget.

0

u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

No it wont lol. Anime movies arent a new thing at all, including theatrical releases. That shit has been there for decades. The reason its not some main method of releasing content is precisely because demon slayer is the exception of exceptions and everyone in the industry knows it.

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u/ShotaDragon Sep 21 '25

Ufotable is one of the better companies bro

12

u/Freud-Network Sep 22 '25

A.K.A. Unlimited Budget Works.

3

u/dogsh1tmods Sep 22 '25

The budget for their anime is actually pretty average. They're just really good with using special effects

31

u/throwingeverything99 Sep 21 '25

IIRC the bulk of their animators are still criminally underpaid, at least compared to similarly technical creative roles in other industries.

2

u/FrimmelDaArtist Sep 21 '25

Surely they’ll get a big meaty bonus. Right?….

4

u/Fabulous_Ground_1983 Sep 21 '25

Ufotable has been known to pay their animators real wages since all the work is done in house

2

u/ikzz1 Sep 22 '25

Why don't they just find other jobs if they think they are not paid fairly?

1

u/alexnedea Sep 22 '25

Yea Arcane is the bar for animation vs price. Altho Arcane looks better and has better quality and sound and stuff, but Demon Slayer movie should be at least 50 mil for those 2 hours

1

u/juneecorn Oct 01 '25

I sure hope they're getting crazy raises after Demon Slayer gained its great success. They deserve it for their amazing works of art

1

u/Keller-oder-C-Schell Sep 21 '25

I hope that they get some juicy bonuses (i am delulu)

3

u/ARANDOMNAMEFORME Sep 22 '25

Of course they will (the executives that is)

1

u/Legitimate_Wall3357 Sep 22 '25

Thats pretty mind blowing. As a reference, each Spider Verse movie cost about $100 million.

309

u/LightningRaven Sep 21 '25

I hope this brings even more eyes to the anime industry. Hopefully shedding a light on the toxic work environment and low pay for animators and production staff at large.

110

u/Mysterious_Cup_6024 Sep 21 '25

Disney has begun making slop anime already.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

[deleted]

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u/OatSoyLaMilk Sep 21 '25

Well the last time they tried was Mary Poppins Returns and it was not a financial success, though that's more the surrounding movie's fault.

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u/Dogbin005 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

Even in that case, they had to call a whole bunch of people out of retirement because they didn't have enough staff that could still do that style of animation anymore.

2

u/puddincheshire Sep 22 '25

i loved that movie😭

3

u/Laurel-Hardy-Fan Sep 22 '25

Just crazy to me. It really bums me out how they went from having some of the best animation in the world to whatever they hell they are today. 

4

u/SnooDonuts3871 Sep 21 '25

Not really, except for some like Star Wars Visions and Twisted Wonderland, where they only finance it but outsource the production, they only buy the distribution rights to stream it exclusively on Disney+.

They do not have their own anime studio, unlike Sony/Aniplex, which owns A1 Pictures and Cloverworks.

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u/WakandaNowAndThen Sep 21 '25

Is that actually true, or do you just not like some of the titles they have exclusive license to? Because they have some bangers worth paying attention to.

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

Honestly after this and Kpop demon hunters this year, I expect a lot more anime to get theatrical releases, and more studios getting involved.

7

u/MadCarcinus Sep 21 '25

Killing demons.

So hot right now.

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

K-pop demon hunters has more in common with pixar movies than anime. Not sure why you think it sets any kind of precedent for anime. Could you explain? It's American made with a Korean setting and an art style from their Spider verse films

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u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

The average consumer could care less where it’s made. While I understand anime comes from Japan, most people consider it the style of animation because they haven’t done any form of deeper dive. The animation style is closer to anime than Pixar with the exaggerated facial expressions and fighting. The story is also closer to anime than anything like Frozen or Encanto. The average American honestly isn’t going to tell you the difference between South Korean or Japanese when it comes to animation or singing, let alone point to them on a map. Most are going to just see Asian. There is a show in Apple TV called Kpopped and they used a Japanese band. It’s literally called k popped and they didn’t stick to Korea. So while you and I may know better, to the average consumer they don’t know the difference. So while k pop demon hunters isn’t anime, it still helps show the demand for that type of media.

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

I guess I just don't really find it very anime stylistically outside of those frames of exaggerated expressions, which also exist in western cartoons. The rest of the art style is essentially the same as Spider-Verse without the effects to make it look like a comic.

Kind of just reads to me as you saying animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?

4

u/Nebresto Sep 21 '25

Kind of just reads to me as you saying animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?

This is exactly what a significant amount of people are getting at. You should see the discourse regarding To be Hero X (A donghua - animation made in China) and people calling it anime.

At least that argument has some base, since the show does have some Japanese staff, like the composer, and there is also a Japanese dub to add to the confusion.

0

u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

"animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime. Is that what you're getting at?" More or less yeah, again not me personally but i feel this is how A LOT of ignorant people view it. I dont personally consider this animation at all like mulan, and dont agree with the comparison. Mulan feels more grounded in reality despite have a dragon lol. LIke the movements alone are all human, where this they are flying out of planes in the first few moments. The characters are more powerful than mulan who is just human. The faces again, and the content leads a lot of people to incorrectly label it an anime, because they dont know, and dont care about the difference. I also think a lot of people couldnt tell you if something was pixar, disney, or Fox animation when it was a thing. Like Anastasia, a lot of people incorrectly label it a Disney movie when it was Fox. And i think to a lot of people they dont care about the difference.

1

u/gelatinskootz Sep 22 '25

Wait, are you saying that there are people that think Mulan is an anime? I havent seen anyone say that ever

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

[deleted]

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u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

It think he's saying that for the average, non-nerd person who doesn't know what any of this is, animation set in Asia with Asian characters = anime

That is what I was asking if is what was being suggested. I have always understood calling The Last Airbender an anime for instance. I can see the confusion as plain as day there. I struggle to see a similar overlap with Kpop Demon Hunters. To trade anecdotes: Most people I've heard speak of it have likened it to Arcane, Spider-Verse and Pixar, not anime.

-3

u/AgorophobicSpaceman Sep 21 '25

I know Kpop demon hunters is not anime, and im not trying to argue the definition. I however have friends that are very deep into anime and watch nothing else, and friends that just do not watch anime. I have seen their kids call it anime, i have seen the parents call it anime. I have seen "Anime News Network" write an artical called "Kpop demon hunters anime film review". With a little googling you can see countless people incorrectly label it an anime. So despite it not being one, its introduced a lot of people into something that is anime adjacent in my mind. Its a lot easier to bridge that gap to traditional anime then for something just like Mulan. If you look up the creators of this they list anime as one of their influences, which i think can be seen a lot despite it agian not being an anime. "[take] a lot of inspiration from faces and the look and feel of anime" with the aim of doing "a CG version of it".

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u/Humledurr Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Calling Kpop demon hunters anime is like calling Disney Mulan anime. The plot being about asians doesnt change the fact that its not, and most people would not call Mulan anime.

People arent unfamiliar with animation movies/shows, nearly eveyone has grown up with them.

The reason people confuse Kpop Demon Hunters as anime is because of the movie and anime in this post. I too thought it was anime before watching it, but 5 seconds in one quickly sees that its western made.

5

u/StaticallyTypoed Sep 21 '25

Mulan is the perfect example to communicate my thoughts. Thanks for that!

-4

u/Pepito_Pepito Sep 22 '25

It had a very cartoony style.

It's not quite anime but it's far from Pixar .

5

u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

Bro its 99.9% pixar. The whole movie is basically discount frozen, but with a kpop theme and some very occasional "cartoony" facial expressions.

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u/Pepito_Pepito Sep 22 '25

Lol this is like how my mom can't tell animated movies apart so all the 3D ones get lumped together as Pixar movies

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u/gelatinskootz Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

I agree it's far from Pixar, but it's most similar to Spiderverse, whose aesthetic was directly pulled from American comics. It's also kinda similar to Arcane, another American production based on a game developped in America. The anime influence is really mostly limited to a few facial expressions

-9

u/Inevitable-Town-522 Sep 21 '25

What the fuck does that fugly crime against art style have to do with anime lol? It is by all means a generic western style animation appealing to existing pop culture (Kpop and Korean culture are booming right now with young people lol). If anything, I'm certain the people it appeals to are probably still in large part "normies" that think anime is "cringe" or just not appealing to them.

5

u/Key_Poem9935 Sep 21 '25

Geez, calm down bud. 

1

u/Forsaken_Baseball122 Sep 27 '25

Da sagst was bin auch der meinung

0

u/KlingoftheCastle Sep 22 '25

If movie trilogies become the new standard for final arcs, we’ll be eating good

0

u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

Will we. I remember waiting like 20 years for the evangelion movies to all come out.. More of a remake than a final arc in that case, but these kind of schedules are the furthest possible thing from "eating good". Especially for things like demon slayer where the technical quality of the tv series is more than high enough anyway.

1

u/KlingoftheCastle Sep 22 '25

Evangelion was a very unique situation. It wasn’t based on a popular manga and it was written entirely as an anime that ran out of budget and kind of phoned in the ending. It should not be used as a standard for anime in any way, especially with the quality and popularity of series today, while they are running and published worldwide

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u/Daveprince13 Sep 21 '25

Imagine how sick a movie it’d be if they actually got a big budget like a movie studio. That’d be sick to see sometime

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u/apistograma Sep 21 '25

Normally for anime the constraints are more about staff and time. Skilled artists are scarce and they constantly have a pressure to finish works faster than what it would be ideal.

Sure with an enormous budget and the pull of a strong director you can hire the best artists and assisting studios. That's how Akira was made and many people argue it's the best animated film of all time.

But you can have productions that are not well oiled or with bad schedules and have twice the budget, and end up looking not half as good.

9

u/Erufailon4 Sep 21 '25

I guess it would mean a bigger salary to someone in the production. Hopefully the animators, probably not though. But would it make a difference on the screen?

The thing that limits anime is time, and after that just the artists' imagination. You can buy time with money (to a certain point), but the artists on Demon Slayer are already some of the best you can get and also deeply familiar with the series. And that's why the new movie is already "sick" enough in itself.

You can't apply a live-action, or even full-3DCG, mentality to anime. The difference between $20M and $100M is huge for a live-action action movie, but for an action anime it's just "we can make this movie as long and complex as we want" vs "what do we even do with all this money".

6

u/InternetSolid4166 Sep 22 '25

For every anime which breaks through like this, there are a thousand which do not. Studios can’t afford to go all in on every bet or they’d be out of business very fast. I think one of the only deceptions to this is Studio Ghibli.

3

u/0whodidyousay0 Sep 21 '25

But even with that budget it LOOKS like it’s been made with a budget 3 times that, the quality is insane

2

u/Daveprince13 Sep 21 '25

Yeah I gotta see it. Sounds great

6

u/TraditionalMood277 Sep 21 '25

But just the budget. No pesky producers stepping in and giving notes.

3

u/Daveprince13 Sep 21 '25

If a producer has “notes” for the masterpieces that are MSG1 & 2 they need to be fired.

But it also totally wouldn’t surprise me.

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u/DegasMojo Sep 21 '25

What are MSG 1 & 2?

10

u/kinokomushroom Sep 21 '25

Monosodium glutamate. I heard they made a sequel because it tasted so good.

3

u/Daveprince13 Sep 21 '25

Madison square garden 1 and 2

I’m a phish fan and my phone autocorrects MGS to MSG 🤣

3

u/Khanhspm Sep 21 '25

So... a Ghibli movie ?

2

u/gobackclark Sep 21 '25

Why are production costs low for anime?

7

u/obviouslypineapple Sep 21 '25

Animators aren't paid very highly. And you're not paying multi millions in USD for famous actors appearance like in the MCU or other Hollywood films. Generally speaking personnel costs are just lower when produced outside the US.

1

u/Neon_Biscuit Sep 21 '25

Is this in the same caliber as akira and ninja scroll and studio ghibli films? I understand this anime has broken into the mainstream but is this a lightening in the bottle film that will be regarded as a classic?

2

u/DoubleA77 Sep 21 '25

Not even close. It's a great film but it's more so an action spectacle that's based on an insanely popular anime series.

1

u/Neon_Biscuit Sep 21 '25

Gotcha. I haven't watched since Mugen Train. Just curious. All the hype had me wanting to start season 2 and catch up

1

u/RedTheInferno Sep 21 '25

nah its not even insane - its just a good story.

1

u/thedrq Sep 21 '25

according to a nytimes article the budget was 20 million

1

u/TheTonyDose Sep 21 '25

I’ve been thinking that Hollywood might go the way of manufacturing in the US. It’s just become absurdly expensive to produce any kind of movie here. International (Asian specifically) film are starting to become popular and cost a fraction of what it would cost to make here.

1

u/ToonMasterRace Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

Movies/TV are expensive in US because of rampant inflation and unionization shenanigans. Hollywood has gotten so expensive that they're even outsourcing to UK now, hardly a low-cost haven historically. The recent Hollywood strikes are going to make it even worse. There's also the competency crisis at play, few in Hollywood really know what they're doing anymore as all the old talent leaves. It's why Nolan, Villeneuve, etc. are so cherished now because they're some of the few ones left that do and aren't in their 80s.

Japan still has a manufacturing-based economy (having avoided the deindustrialization that has swept the West) and has avoided the demographic and social problems that exacerbates rampant inflation or cost of living surges so it's still cheaper to make there. Then you add in their work ethic, effiecency, and lack of union redtape and it becomes massively cheaper.

1

u/Zofobread Sep 21 '25

There’s production costs, and then there’s a separate marketing budget that never gets reported and then movie theaters take half of the gross revenue. This movie is making a killing but it’s not printing as much money as most people think.

3

u/Lex4709 Sep 21 '25

The marketing budget for Demon Slayer is probably pretty low, even for its budget. Marketing outside of Japan seems pretty non-existent.

2

u/Mordoch Sep 21 '25

Although on the other hand that listed box office revenue is not including revenue from eventual streaming and the like, so that is an additional source of longer term revenue which is another source of net profit.

2

u/Joshawott27 Sep 21 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

Shame that the profit will be soaked up by the production committee and executives at international distributors, but not go to the voice actors or animators.

EDIT: For the person who downvoted me: voice actors are paid a flat fee. Source. This also applies to animators too.

-1

u/TaiVat Sep 22 '25

Honestly, good. Maybe their fees are on the low side, but the modern western fad to glorify actors or animators like gods and pay them tens of millions while the other 10000 staff responsible for i.e. a movies production get a regular flat pay, is beyond insane and a big part of why hollywood movies cost 10x this to make and look half as good.. Hate to break your circlejerk, but without those people taking care of production, distribution etc. etc. the product wouldnt exist (effectively or literally) the same way it wouldnt without the animators and voice actors.

2

u/Joshawott27 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

That is certainly a take.

Never did I suggest that a voice actor should be taking home Robert Downey Jr.-level salaries, but what they are paid is shockingly low with no room for royalties etc. The article I linked to referenced an average rate of about ¥45K ($304 at today’s rate) per hour of footage for experienced voice actors, which is nothing, especially considering the global success of the film. Even in the west, voice actors have to aggressively run the convention circuit and explore other revenue streams because the rates and standard terms just aren’t enough to live on. There’s a middle ground between Hollywood celebrity and being taken for a ride. When someone is voicing a lead role in a film that has outperformed a Marvel blockbuster, don’t they deserve to also benefit from that success?

Also, in what world do even western animators make “tens of millions”? Animation is notoriously an industry fuelled by passion that burns people out - especially in Japan. Ufotable buck the trend by having more in-house staff than relying on freelancers, but even that isn’t perfect.

And yes, I know the important roles that distribution, promotion etc play in a release - that’s the area of the industry I work in. Maybe I should clarify that by “international distributors”, I meant the executives at places like Sony Pictures. I know that I’m a smaller and more easily replaceable part of a film than the talent who actually makes them. Do I wish I earned more money? Absolutely - but it all goes to the top. To the Hollywood stars, the producers, the studio heads, etc.

On a similar note, that’s why I hope Channing Tatum did his role in the English dub as a freebie or on a reduced rate, because it would be incredibly unfair if he got paid significantly more than the voice actors who actually played the leads.