"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" topped the box office, taking in $146 million in its domestic debut, the biggest opening weekend for a film so far this year.
The animated feature from Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures and the Illumination animation studio was forecast to bring in $112 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters from Friday through Sunday, according to projections from Boxoffice Pro.
"Super Mario" was released on Wednesday to take advantage of the spring break and Easter holidays. Over the five-day period it took in $205 million domestically, according to Comscore Inc. Universal said it was the best opening weekend ever for an animated film. With a global haul of $378 million, it’s the biggest opening of any movie so far this year, a title previously held by Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel superhero picture "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," which opened to $225 million in ticket sales.
"Super Mario’s" performance helps theater chains such as AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and Regal owner Cineworld Group Plc, which have been hurt by the slow recovery of the cinema industry.
It’s also a victory for Nintendo Co., the Japanese entertainment giant that created the Mario video-game franchise. A previous Hollywood effort, the live-action "Super Mario Bros." in 1993, was panned by critics and has frequently appeared on lists of the worst films ever made. Nintendo’s efforts to expand the brand include a Super Nintendo World that opened at Universal’s theme park in Los Angeles in February.
Illumination, a Santa Monica, California-based studio founded by producer Chris Meledandri in 2007, has been the force behind a number of Universal’s animated hits, including "Despicable Me" and "Minions."
"Super Mario" divided critics, with just 56% of professional reviewers recommending the film, according to RottenTomatoes.com. It did better with regular filmgoers, where it scored 96% overall. The cast includes Chris Pratt as Mario and Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach.
The film opened alongside "Air," an Amazon Studios film about Nike Inc.’s courtship of basketball great Michael Jordan. That movie, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, generated $20 million in domestic ticket sales to finish in fourth place. The picture was also produced by David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which co-financed the recent "Top Gun" and "Mission: Impossible" films, and Artists Equity, a company formed last year by Affleck, Damon and former Goldman Sachs banker Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital.
