THE FIRST SLAM DUNK earned 4.18 (US$30.65 million) billion yen at the Japanese box office. It has sold 2.81 million tickets so far.

This is the highest grossing movie of the franchise. The movie has beaten Kaguya-Sama Love Is War The Kiss That Never Ends, That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime: Scarlet Bond, One Piece Film Red and James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way Of The Water at the Japanese box office.

The First Slam Dunk movie is followed by Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume No Tojimari movie. The Shinkai directorial movie has earned 414 million yen (USD 3.01 million) with 316,000 admissions in its 6th weekend. Thus making the movies total earnings to 9.344 billion yen (US$ 68.08 billion) with a footfall of 6.939 million. The movie is predicted to earn 10 billion yen before the end of 2022.

Whereas, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way Of Water was released on 1466 screens in Japan and it merely earned 477 million yen (USD 3.48 million) with 259,000 admissions on its first weekend. Japan is the only country where Avatar failed to grab the no.1 spot at the box office.

In addition, That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime The Movie: Scarlet Bond, has earned 1.058 billion yen (US$ 7.76 Million) with over 800,00 admissions.

Also, Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War The First Kiss That Never Ends movie was released in 51 theatres on December 17 in Japan.

Whereas, One Piece Film Red ranked 9th in its 20th weekend.

Weekend box office Top 10 in Japan (December 17-18, 2022) based on ticket sales:

1. THE FIRST SLAM DUNK – 4.18 billion yen
2.  Suzume no Tojimari – 9.34 billion yen
3. Avatar: The Way of Water – 646 million yen
4. Dr. Koto Shinryojo – 478 million yen
5. Lager yori Ai wo Komete – 670 million yen.
6. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime The Movie: Scarlet Bond– 1.058 billion yen
7. Tsuki no Michikake – 670 million yen
8. Kaguya-sama: Love is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends– numbers not available
9. One Piece Film Red
10. Black Adam

The First Slam Dunk movie’s teaser is filled with intriguing art and exciting theme songs. Check out the teaser here:

The opening theme song is performed by The Birthday, while 10-FEET will perform the ending theme song “Zero Sensation”.

The movie is based on the basketball manga SLAM DUNK serialized in the Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 to 1996.

The manga depicts the story of the main character Sakuragi Hanamichi, a basketball novice who joins the Shohoku High School basketball club, and how his talent rapidly blossoms as he clashes with his teammate Nagarekawa Kaede and competes against other strong schools.

The series has sold more than 120 million copies in Japan, and a TV anime of 101 episodes was broadcast from 1993 to 1996.

The new movie is directed and written by Inoue Takehiko, the author of the original story, and produced by Toei Animation/Dandelion Animation Studio.

Among the listed staff members are character designer/animation director Yasuyuki Ebara (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress) and technical directors Katsuhiko Kitada (Attack on Titan episodes, Major: Yūjō no Winning Shot), Naoki Miyahara (Digimon Adventure, Popin Q), Toshio Ōhashi (LayereD Stories 0), and Yū Kamatani (Looking for Magical DoReMi, Precure Super Stars!).

Daiki Nakazawa is directing the CG, and Yūta Ogura is producing the CG. Kazuo Ogura is directing the art. Yota Tsuruoka is directing the sound with Koji Kasamatsu.

Additionally, details about two books that are related to the movie were also revealed.

The first book, titled SLAM DUNK JUMP, contains 24 select chapters of the 276 chapters from the manga, which form a basis for the movie’s plot. The book was released on Nov 8, 2022.

The second book, titled THE FIRST SLAM DUNK re:SOURCE, is described as special book which contains and analyzes the very fundamentals of the movie. It also contains illustrations drawn by Inoue during the films’ production process and also a lengthy interview. The book will be released on Dec 15, 2022.

The voice cast of the five members of Shohoku has been renewed from the TV anime version, with Sogo Nakamura as Ryota Miyagi, Jun Kasama as Hisashi Mitsui, Shinichiro Kamio as Kaede Ryukawa, Subaru Kimura as Hanamichi Sakuragi, and Kenta Miyake as Goken Akagi.

Source: Eiga, PIXXIN, Filmarks, Kogyo Tsushin