Film opens in N. America on April 10
North American film distribution company NEON (Oscar-winning films Parasite, Anora U.S. distributor) began streaming an English-subtitled trailer on Thursday for its release of the KOTAKE CREATE’s infinite-loop horror game Exit 8 (8-Ban Deguchi) in North America. The film will open in North America on April 10.
Image via Exit 8 film’s X/Twitter account
© 2025 映画「8番出口」製作委員会
The film opened in Japan in August 2025, and ranked at #2 in its opening weekend. The film sold 672,000 tickets and earned 960,867,600 yen (about US$6.46 million) in its first three days. The film had the highest-earning opening three days for a live-action film in Japan for 2025 at the time of its opening. The film earned a cumulative total of 4,899,067,900 yen (about US$32.10 million), as of October 19.
The film had its world premiere screening at Cannes during the festival in May 2025, and received an eight-minute standing ovation. The film’s poster (image right) also won Cannes’ Prix Luciole poster competition.
Singer and actor Kazunari Ninomiya (live-action Letters from Iwo Jima, Ōoku, Gantz, Assassination Classroom) stars in the film in his first collaboration with writer-director Genki Kawamura (producer on your name.; Fireworks, Should We See it from the Side or the Bottom?; Suzume).
In the game, a player is trapped at a subway train station, in an underground passageway that goes in an endless loop. To escape to “Exit 8,” the player must keep walking while looking carefully for any anomaly that foreshadows danger.
KOTAKE CREATE, which is actually the name of a one-person indie game developer, launched the game on PC via Steam in November 2023. The game is also available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and MyDearest released a virtual reality version on the Meta Quest Store in July 2025, and then on PC via Steam in September 2025. The game also got releases on iOS and Android in March 2025. Videos for the game have garnered over 100 million views on YouTube.
Source: Neon’s YouTube channel
