Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Dethrones Superman at the Box Office, Ending Marvel's Top-10 Streak Since 2011
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle slices past $615 million at the box office, cementing its status as a global juggernaut.
Anime just lapped superheroes at the box office. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has now edged past Superman worldwide, and the ripple effects could make 2025 the first year since 2011 where Marvel ends up shut out of the top 10 entirely. Wild sentence, I know.
Where the money is
- As of September 30, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has pulled in $617 million worldwide, per The Wrap.
- That puts it ahead of Superman at $615 million and well clear of Fantastic Four: First Steps at $521 million.
- Right now, Superman is sitting in 8th place for the year, according to Box Office Mojo.
So what happens to the year-end top 10?
Short version: Marvel looks locked out. With Avatar: Fire and Ash landing in December, Marvel Studios is on track to finish 2025 without a single film in the year’s top 10 for the first time since the early MCU days in 2011. That is not a sentence I expected to type a few years ago.
And here’s the weirder twist: there’s a real scenario where neither Marvel nor DC ends up in the top 10. Superman, DC Studios' debut feature, currently holds 8th, but heavy hitters still to come like Avatar: Fire and Ash, Zootopia 2, and Wicked: For Good could easily nudge it out by year’s end. Inside baseball, yes, but the optics of anime outpacing capes while holiday tentpoles reshuffle the board is... not what the old playbook predicted.
About that Demon Slayer sequel
Despite Infinity Castle’s big win, news on the follow-up is basically a shrug for now. The plan is a trilogy, but dates are still up in the air. Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Parini told The Hollywood Reporter there’s urgency, even if nothing is locked:
"Well, we’ve announced that it will be a trilogy of movies, but our partners at Aniplex and Ufotable haven’t decided on dates yet," Parini said. "But look, there’s definitely urgency for all of us to bring more Demon Slayer to fans as soon as we can - because we know the urgency is there among the fan base."
Bottom line: anime is not just competing with superhero movies anymore, it’s beating them. And if December plays out the way it looks, the year’s final leaderboard might be missing both caped logos entirely.