It was announced on April 18, 2023, that The First Slam Dunk, a new movie based on the Slam Dunk manga by author and illustrator Takehiko Inoue, will be released in the United States this year.
The domestic movie theatre company Cinemark listed the movie as scheduled to receive a release date for the region sometime this year. However, the precise date is currently unknown.
The First Slam Dunk continues in the tradition of movies like One Piece Film: Red, Suzume no Tojimari, and others that have enjoyed enormous success in theatres in the United States. The movie Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, first released in Japanese theatres in 2020 before being imported to the United States, is credited by fans as the start of the current anime film mania.
Anyone else having a hard time waiting for the U.S. theatrical release of The First Slam Dunk? TOEI, please provide the fans with an American release date!#SLAMDUNK #SLAMDUNKMOVIE #THEFIRSTSLAMDUNK #TOEI pic.twitter.com/hQVBkZO5MF
— Super Bowl LVI Champ – RamsSteve (@RamsSteve) April 12, 2023
Fans in the United States, however are uncertain whether they will get the Japanese dub with English subtitles or a fully English-dubbed version.
Since its December 2022 debut, the movie has made 12,943,919,490 yen, or a little under 97 million dollars, as of April 9. Currently, the movie ranks as the 11th highest-grossing anime movie in Japan and the 25th highest-grossing movie of all time. The picture, which debuted at number one, sold 847,000 tickets and made slightly under 1.3 billion yen in its first weekend.
Inoue wrote the screenplay for the First Slam Dunk movie and personally directed it at Toei Animation. Yasuyuki Ebara (Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress), a character designer and animation director, and the technical directors Naoki Miyahara, Toshio Ohashi, and Yu Kamatani are additional crew members. Katsuhiko Kitada (Attack on Titan episodes) is another team member.
At the very latest, over the summer, The First Slam Dunk will probably debut in the US. The release window for Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume no Tojimari in the fall of 2023 is also highly possible, allowing the buzz surrounding the film to fizzle out. Although it’s doubtful, it would be amazing if one of the many anime movies ever debuted at #1 in the United States.
Takehiko Inoue’s Slam Dunk, which she also wrote and illustrated, was first published in serial form in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from October 1990 to June 1996. The series was eventually turned into an anime television series by Toei Animation that ran from October 1993 to March 1996 before being shown worldwide. Japan and numerous other Asian nations are big fans of the series.