After Demon Slayer and Kokuho, Michael Becomes Another Mega-Hit—What’s Behind Sony’s Entertainment Boom

A major hit in Japan, surpassing ¥8.5 Billion

Sony’s entertainment business shows no signs of slowing down.

Last year, the anime film “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Castle – Chapter 1: Akaza Returns,” produced by Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, became a major hit. Meanwhile, the film “Kokuho (The Art of Japanese Kabuki)” became the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film of all time.

While the excitement over those successes has yet to die down, another film causing a worldwide social phenomenon is “Michael,” which depicts the life of the King of Pop.

The film portrays the life of Michael Jackson. Its worldwide box-office revenue surpassed $1 billion (approximately ¥160 billion), the first time a biographical film has ever reached that figure. It was released in Japan in June and has also become a huge hit, grossing more than ¥8.5 billion domestically.

With a succession of successful films continuing to generate substantial revenue, the Sony Group is riding high. One Sony Music employee described the atmosphere within the company this way:

“There’s an atmosphere where we’re encouraged to take on challenges, where we’re able to take on challenges. There’s also a belief that because you’re having fun yourself, you can make other people have fun.’ Whether it’s music or anime, we pursue what we love to the fullest and bring other people into it. I think it’s because we’re enjoying ourselves that so many ideas come out of it.”

Atsuo Nakayama, a scholar of entertainment sociology who serves as chair of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Content IP Study Group and as a director of the All Japan TV Program Production Companies Association, analyzed Sony’s remarkable run as follows:

“I think what led both ‘Demon Slayer’ and ‘Kokuho’ to become hits was that they properly preserved the creators’ individual artistic visions. ‘Demon Slayer’ was produced by Aniplex, but because it was made jointly with an external animation studio, ufotable, they were able to preserve the strengths of the original manga.

With ‘Kokuho,’ meanwhile, Toho had considered investing in the project but ultimately passed on it, while ‘MiriaGon Studio,’ a subsidiary of Aniplex, had properly secured the rights. They valued the voices of people on the ground saying, ‘We want to make this,’ and gave the project the green light for a source material that Toho, a company specializing in films, had let go. Sony’s eye for picking winners—investing after properly understanding the strengths of the original work, even in projects that might seem commercially questionable within the film industry—is remarkable.”

Sony’s business does not end simply with earning money from movie ticket sales (box-office revenue). Behind its remarkable performance is a unique circular revenue structure that other companies cannot easily replicate. The greatest strength of Sony’s entertainment strategy lies in its ability to connect a single IP (intellectual property) to every kind of business within the group.

Take “Demon Slayer,” for example. Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, takes the lead in producing and planning the anime. From hit anime theme songs (the music business), to sales of merchandise such as figures and apparel, game adaptations, and even worldwide distribution through its own overseas anime streaming platform, Crunchyroll, Sony is able to capture within its own group virtually every form of revenue generated by the IP.

Achieving One Sony

Once a work becomes a hit, Sony has built a system that allows it to generate revenue from users across every possible point of contact, far beyond the movie theater.

“The Sony Group was originally quite bureaucratic, and the different parts of the company weren’t very cooperative with one another. But when Kazuo Hirai (2012–2018) became president, he promoted the concept of ‘One Sony.’ Then, during the tenure of President Kenichiro Yoshida (2018–2025), Sony Interactive Entertainment, which produces PlayStation games, and Sony Pictures succeeded in integrating games and film.

“The groundwork laid over the past seven or eight years is what ultimately led to the success of ‘Michael,’ which brought together the film and music businesses. In other words, over the past decade, Sony has rebuilt a culture in which different divisions can cooperate beyond their individual areas of expertise.” (Nakayama, quoted above)

The megahit success of “Michael” has highlighted the strength of the “One Sony” strategy that the company has been pursuing, while also generating synergies with its music catalog (rights to past songs).

Through years of negotiations and acquisitions, Sony has acquired half of the master recording and publishing rights to Michael Jackson’s music. Following the film’s release, the number of streams of Michael’s songs has surged dramatically on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music around the world.

The film business carries risks due to the high costs of production and promotion, but royalties from the use of songs through streaming continue to flow into Sony at extremely high profit margins. The company is using a massive promotional vehicle—the movie—to dramatically increase the value of its own music assets, while generating substantial profits from its highly profitable music business. It is a two birds with one stone revenue model.

While taking on the risks of film production, Sony maximizes the value of its own IP through anime and music. Fans watch a film and are moved by it, listen to the songs on a Sony service on their way home, and then play a Sony game once they get home—the cycle of this user experience is precisely what serves as the source of the company’s sustained, enormous profits.

Sony, once a giant in the consumer electronics industry, has now transformed into a world-class comprehensive entertainment company encompassing all the major elements of entertainment—film, music, games, and anime—within its own group.

Sony’s IP strategy ensures that hit works do not end up as one-off successes, but instead generate profits across the entire group. The success of “Michael” appears to have once again demonstrated to the world the strength of the entertainment empire Sony has built.