The Super Mario Bros. Movie, produced by Universal, is unstoppable, and it is still impossible to predict how far it will soar. On Saturday, the adaptation of the cartoon video game brought in $56 million, which is anticipated to bring in another $36 million today. It would bring its prolonged launch over the course of five days to a record-breaking $204 million. Initially, the movie was anticipated to generate a five-day opening of approximately $130 million.
Nonetheless, Super Mario is showing signs of being a hit in all four corners of the world. The market has been desperate for content that is appropriate for children; the most recent clean children’s movie to be released in theaters was arguably December’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which capitalized on the fact that there was very little competition and made more than $480 million worldwide. Yet, by the time Super Mario is done, even that sum will seem like pocket change. The movie will have a staggering opening weekend of $377 million worldwide, and it will likely finish with a global gross of one billion dollars.
On Wednesday, the movie brought in $31 million domestically; on Thursday and Friday, it brought in $26 million and $55 million, respectively. The movie has already broken several box office records, including having the biggest opening of the year (beating Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s $106 million), having the best opening for a video game adaptation (beating Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s $72 million), and having the biggest five-day opening for an Illumination title (beating Despicable Me 2’s $143 million). The film broke all of these records. In addition, Super Mario has already surpassed Quantumania’s lifetime total of 202 million dollars to become the highest-grossing film of 2023.
The movie grossed $21.6 million worldwide, with $16 million coming from 403 theaters in the United States. This makes it the animated feature with the best opening weekend ever at IMAX. The legendary Mario video game brand was the basis for the film Super Mario, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. In 1993, a live-action version of the Mario video game franchise was unsuccessfully adapted into a film.
Only one film not part of a franchise managed to crack the top five.
In three days, John Wick: Chapter 4 will take the second spot in a closely contested face-off with this week’s other significant newcomer, Air, and the film at the top of the box office last weekend, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Air is the other major newcomer this week. In its third weekend of release, John Wick 4 brought in $14.6 million, bringing the film’s domestic cumulative gross to just under $150 million. The sequel to the action film is still trying to beat John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum’s domestic and global totals, which are now the most for the franchise at $171 million and $327 million, respectively.
In its second weekend of release, Dungeons & Dragons had a significant drop in revenue, coming in third place with an estimated total of $14.5 million. The running domestic total for the high-budget fantasy comedy has now reached $62 million thanks to this. Given its lackluster opening weekend performance and substantial budget of $150 million, the critically acclaimed movie would have been in much better shape if it had a greater hold over its audience. Nonetheless, the niche nature of the source material and the absence of true A-list star power may be contributing factors in this instance.
Ben Affleck’s drama Air, about the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing that went into signing basketball great Michael Jordan to Nike, came in fourth place and won the award for best drama. Due to the phenomenal performance of the movie in early screenings, Amazon decided to release it in theaters rather than releasing it directly to streaming services as was initially intended. Although it debuted in theaters in the middle of the week with Super Mario and generated just $14.4 million during the regular Friday-Sunday weekend, Air has now surpassed $20 million domestically. Scream VI from Paramount came in at number five on the list with an estimated gross of $3.3 million in its fifth weekend of release. The terrifying follow-up picture has raked in a total of $103 million within the United States, making it the highest-grossing film in the long-running franchise, at least within the United States.
It is reasonable to anticipate that Super Mario will continue to reign supreme at the box office for the foreseeable future up until the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in the first week of May.
