Since, the beginning of March 2023, Hollywood has been releasing a lot of titles that movie-goers are excited to see – resulting in a number of records being broken. Last month was huge for blockbusters, as Michael B. Jordan's Creed III, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's Scream VI and Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 4 all set new high bars for opening weekends within their respective franchises. To say the least, the industry has been on a roll of late, and this week's we've seen the debut of the biggest hit of them all: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
As far as individual franchises go, The Super Mario Bros. Movie far outgrossed Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's Super Mario Bros from 1993, but what's far more significant is the fact that it had one of the best weekends of all time for an animated feature. Check out the full Top 10 for the past three days below and join me after for analysis.
With A Wednesday Release Date, The Super Mario Bros. Movie Has Already Surpassed $200 Million Domestically
We've seen some wonderful big screen success stories already in 2023, despite the fact that it's only April, but The Super Mario Bros. Movie is arguably the biggest win thus far. Having made $146.4 million domestically over the last three days (according to The Numbers), the video game blockbuster now sits atop the list of biggest opening weekends of the year – easily surpassing Peyton Reed's Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, which brought in $106.1 million back in February.
Of course, that's also not the full story. Hoping to take advantage of the holiday weekend, Universal Pictures opted to put The Super Mario Bros. Movie in theaters on Wednesday instead of Friday last week, and that move definitely helped pad ticket sales. Before the weekend even started, the film managed to bring in more than $58 million in the United States and Canada (about the same amount of money that the successful Creed III made when it hit wide release in March.
Unlike all of the big box office wins last month, The Super Mario Bros. Movie notably didn't arrive in theaters on a wave of pre-release buzz. The first full reactions went online just shortly before the first showtimes, and the film received middling reviews (its presently sporting a 56 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes). This, however, is a film that was always going to be critic-proof. For starters, this is a movie directly aimed at young children and that's not exactly an audience taking advice from professional critics regarding their consumption of entertainment. More importantly, though, this is a big, colorful feature based on one of the most popular video game franchises of all time, and curiosity about it was always going to beat any negative word of mouth.
The film is the latest feather in the cap for Illumination Entertainment, which is best known for producing the Despicable Me and Minions titles. The company has released a number of hits since 2010, but nothing that they've made has been anywhere near as big as The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Before Friday, the company's biggest opening weekend success was Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda's Minions, which made $115.7 million when it first arrived in theaters in the U.S. and Canada in July 2015.
The new animated feature has also already outgrossed a number of Illumination titles, as Garth Jennings' Sing 2, Chris Renaud's The Secret Life Of Pets 2, and Tim Hill's Hop all made less during their entire theatrical runs domestically than what Super Mario Bros. has done in the last five days.
As you might have guessed, the picture for the film only looks rosier when one looks at its worldwide box office performance thus far. The $200 million-plus the feature has made at home has been matched by an estimated $173 million in earnings from abroad, which puts the global total for The Super Mario Bros. Movie at $377.6 million. That means that it is already ranked fourth among the Top 2023 movies, and it only needs to make about $110 million more to catch up to Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. It's very realistic at this point that it will surpass the total earned by Yimou Zhang's Full River Red, which was released in China back in January and has made $673.3 million.
The box office success we're seeing with this feature could end up lasting the rest of the month. While there are some notable titles set to come out in April, none are primarily targeting the same audience as The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which means that it could put up some crazy numbers before its time playing on the big screen comes to an end.
Ben Affleck's Air Lands In The Top 5 As Counterprogramming For Adults
While The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released to attract the attention of young people, Ben Affleck's Air also hit theaters this past Wednesday to operate as counterprogramming for more mature movie-goers, and it mostly worked as expected. It's unclear where the final numbers will place it in terms of ranking in the Top 10 (somewhere between second and fourth place) but early reports from Deadline suggest that its made approximately $14.6 million since Friday. Combined with the money the feature made mid-week, its domestic gross is already up over $20 million.
Air premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in mid-March, quickly earning positive buzz, and it's good to see the movie – a non-genre blockbuster for mature audiences –make some money on the big screen. As an Amazon Studios production, the film will be available to watch on Prime Video before too long, but audiences seem curious to see the star-studded story behind the creation of Nike's Air Jordans in theaters.
John Wick: Chapter 4 Does Battle With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, As The Fantasy Movie Drops 61 Percent Weekend-To-Weekend
Nobody who follows box office developments can be overly surprised by the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but what's good news for the video game feature isn't such great news for John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The fantasy movie was riding high last weekend when it first hit theaters, taking the box office crown with a $38.5 million haul, but there were questions at the time about its legs and ability to justify its reported $150 million budget (per Variety). Now, things aren't looking so great.
Since Friday, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has added just $14.5 million to its domestic total, which now stands at $62.3 million. That's a 61 percent drop that comes despite positive responses from critics and an "A-" grade from CinemaScore. Worldwide, the film has made $124.1 million, which means that the chances of fans getting a sequel seem pretty slim at the moment.
What's not-so-great news for Dungeons & Dragons did end up being good news for John Wick: Chapter 4. The action epic starring Keanu Reeves added $14.6 million to its domestic ticket sales in its third Friday-to-Sunday, and it has thus far made $147.1 million in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, it's made $268.9 million thus far, meaning that it only needs to make another $58.3 million to become the highest grossing title in the John Wick franchise.
Looking ahead to next week, there is every expectation that The Super Mario Bros. Movie will once again be the film on top of the box office chart – but what will that mean for Julius Avery's The Pope's Exorcist starring Russell Crowe and Chris McKay's Renfield with Nicolas Cage? Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out, and you can always sneak a peek at what else is coming to the big screen via our 2023 Movie Release Calendar.
