My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising Conquers Opening Night at US Box Office

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is now out in US theaters - and apparently off to a very good start. As Deadline reports, Heroes Rising won the Wednesday box office in its opening day in theaters, earning $1.7 million in 1,275 theaters. That's nowhere near the $7M that Dragon Ball Super: Broly earned when it opened on MLK Weekend 2019, but is well over the $1.3 million that My Hero Academia: Two Heroes earned in theaters during its entire opening weekend in late September 2018, in just over 500 theaters. Two Heroes earned $5.75M in its entire domestic run; Heroes Rising already seems poised to best that figure - and then some. The film has already grossed $15.1M in Japan.

Even more impressive: My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising beat some big contenders at Wednesday's box office, including Disney/20th Century Studio's Call of the Wild with Harrison Ford (2nd place with $1.5M) and Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog (3rd place with $1.1M). Granted, Heroes Rising was just opening to a front-loaded fan demographic, while Call of the Wild is coming off opening weekend, and Sonic is in week #2 of release. Still, it's another bit of compelling evidence that anime is gaining a legitimate foothold in American Cinema.

If you're not familiar, here's the storyline for My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising:

After the events of Season 4 of the Anime, Izuku Midoriya and Katsuki Bakugo go from fighting against each other to fighting side by side as they face the biggest threat that dares to dominate the domain: NINE.

Heroes Rising has been (in general) a hit with the My Hero Academia fandom, while also sparking some heated debates about the franchise mythos. Warning! Major My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising SPOILERS Follow!

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One big thing that has the MHA fandom in somewhat of an uproar is the big finale fight between Deku, Bakugo and the villain Nine. In order to defeat their foe, Deku transfers his One For All quirk to Bakugo, allowing them both to fight using the power to take out Nine (a villain with 9 different quirks). When word of that fight leaked online, a lot of fans weren't cool with it, since Deku being rewarded with One For All is the entire premise of the series. That said, Heroes Rising could be setting the stage for Bakugo to eventually inherit One For All in full - which remains one of the fan theories about how he and Deku's relationship will play out.

My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising is now in US Theaters.